The forces of intellect, myth and emotion vie for attention in the poetry of Sharron Hass, where the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna is invoked, and one may also find the ordinary travails of human love.
Poet, essayist and editor Sharron Hass studied and taught classics at Tel Aviv University, and now lectures on literature and poetry at the Kerem Institute for teachers in Jerusalem. One of the founders of a writing program for gifted youth, the Matan Arts and Culture Project, she has taught in the Creative Writing Program of Ben Gurion University, and in 2006 will serve as a visiting poet at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2003 Ms. Hass’s contributions to Israeli life and letters were honored with the Prime Minister’s Award for Writers, and she has represented Israel at poetry festivals in Macedonia and Rotterdam.
Many of Hass’s poems involve mythical images and she has dealt intensively with experiences which may be located on the border between reality, legend and dream. Although her poetry has a unique personal stamp, much of it alludes to figures known from ancient mythology and world literature. Hass’ poems give the impression of constant motion in time, space and emotion and they sometimes express secret corners of the poet’s inner world with joyful language that contrasts with a solemn style.
Poems
Prologue
The Mountain Mother is Gone
The Flutist
How Many Times Do We Want to Go Home
Four O´Clock in the Morning
Also on this site
Writing a mythology of women’s relations
An interview with Sharron Hass.
“The one at home desires to leave, the one outside, to enter”
PIW editor Rami Saari on Sharron Hass’s ‘How Many Times Do We Want to Go Home’.
Bibliography
In Hebrew
Netiney ha-shmesh (Subjects of the Sun). Ha-kibbutz ha-meuchad, 2005.
Ha-zar ve-eshet xol(The Stranger and the Everyday Woman). Ha-kibbutz ha-meuchad, 2001.
Em ha-har ne‛elma (The Mountain Mother is Gone). Helicon-Tag, 1997.
LINKS
In English
The University of Iowa
A wide selection from Hass’ second book, The Stranger and the Everyday Woman.
In Hebrew
Shireshet
A page dedicated to Sharron Hass and her poetry.
Carmel Publishing House
Four of Hass’ poems which were published by the literary review Carmel.
