Poetry

All the poems here are in Hebrew, except two which are also translated into English: Traces in the Sand (9 in Hebrew, 10 in English) and Intensive Care (15 in Hebrew, 16 in English). A translation of Hamidbar (17) is in the review by Yehuda Shenhav.

Shimon said that he started writing poetry because he liked the poems of Wallace Ting (read about it in About poetry). During his life he published 40 poems. He wrote more, but not many more. In 1966 he published a small collection of 18 poems in an elegantly designed black book called Haruzim Shehorim (Black beads/black rhymes). Some of the poems (and a few others not in the book), were published earlier in Tzippor Hannefesh, the satirical magazine for which he was art editor. The poems were well received at the time (read Natan Zach's review [link opens as a PDF in a new window] ) [H] in which he analyzes the poem Ani lo meshalem misim (I don't pay taxes, poem no 18), and his appreciation of Tzabar’s poetry in Hed Hahinuch [H].

In 1966 Shimon re-published Haruzim Shehorim in London, under the imprint of his own publishing house, New Soncino Press. Three hundred copies were printed, signed and numbered. In the new edition he included all poems from the original collection, two poems that were written within a year from the publication of the original book (these were first published in Dappim Tzehubim, a literary magazine), and 18 poems that he wrote between 1967 and 1996. Yitzhak Laor reviewed the newly published poetry book in Ha’aretz [H], and Adam Baruch wrote about it in his column in the Friday supplement of Ma’ariv [H].

In 2004 Shimon published a small yellow booklet, Shirey herpat hakibush (Israel’s occupation of Palestine: Poems of disgrace), a collection of seven political poems. His aim was to disseminate it as widely as possible, and he posted the booklet to various addresses in Israel (read Adam Baruch's comment) [H].

Mitaam 4 (a magazine of literature and radical thinking edited by Yitzhak Laor) published two poems by Shimon, Hamidbar, (The desert, poem no 17) and El ha’adama (To the land ) in 2005. In his review of the magazine, Yehuda Shenhav said: “Tzabar undermines the ‘natural connection between Zionism and the Hebrew language… and shows that it is possible to write literature in the Hebrew language that is not necessarily Jewish and not necessarily Zionist”.