By
– January 11, 2012
The many references in Peter Cole’s newest collection of poems come from the Kabbalah, medieval poetry, and the Bible. These are no doubt enlightening to a scholar, but they are a little hard on the average reader. His creative insights are more accessible. In a section subtitled among the remains of the Cairo Geniza, Cole points out sadly that:
Garbage is
what isn’t wanted,
what isn’t wanted,
what’s no longer put to use.…
—
the weakened pages of fading hymns
or poems that meant the world to
someone
once.…
tossed now
onto the scrap-heap,
longing’s junkyard,…
—
the weakened pages of fading hymns
or poems that meant the world to
someone
once.…
tossed now
onto the scrap-heap,
longing’s junkyard,…
And in this stanza from “Notes on Bewilderment,” Cole’s insight is abetted by his clever play on words:
Love is caught in this revolving door
as well, or maybe that should read:
“evolving.”
as well, or maybe that should read:
“evolving.”
Underlying much of his work is a wry sense of humor which peeks through, sometimes mocking even his own reliance on Kabbalistic allusions:
Well-housed, salaried, insured, and
bourgeois,
like his peers, in a respectable fashion,
Professor X is making, well, a living
around the world for himself with
his teaching
the quiet ecstasies of kabblablah.
bourgeois,
like his peers, in a respectable fashion,
Professor X is making, well, a living
around the world for himself with
his teaching
the quiet ecstasies of kabblablah.
At times, however, Cole tends to sermonize, (which always lessens a poem’s worth), as in “Palestine: A Sestine” where he seems to quote Job in a metaphoric reference to the Palestinians’ plight:
“I have been made a stranger in my
home by guests,”
says Job, in a Hebrew that evolved
along these hills,
though he himself was foreign to
them. His famous pain
is also that of those who call the
Promised Land
home in another tongue. Could
what was pledged be Palestine?
Is Scripture’s fence intended to
guard this mountain’s green?
home by guests,”
says Job, in a Hebrew that evolved
along these hills,
though he himself was foreign to
them. His famous pain
is also that of those who call the
Promised Land
home in another tongue. Could
what was pledged be Palestine?
Is Scripture’s fence intended to
guard this mountain’s green?
Most of Cole’s poems question universal pain and its cause, where God’s injustice seems to be his theme. Yet some of his best lines are about love of God or one another:
Your splendor is all my heart craves,
and it holds my mind
in its spell without fail.
and it holds my mind
in its spell without fail.
Eleanor Ehrenkranz received her Ph.D. from NYU and has taught at Stern College, NYU, Mercy College, and at Pace University. She has lectured widely on Jewish literature and recently published anthology of Jewish poetry, Explaining Life: The Wisdom of Modern Jewish Poetry, 1960 – 2010.
