Guest of the ilb 2004
Peter Cole was born in Paterson/New Jersey, USA, in
1957. He began studying Hebrew in Jerusalem in 1981, and has since
divided his time between Israel and the United States. He has worked
intensively on Hebrew literature, with special emphasis on medieval
Hebrew poetry. In 1988 he started the ambitious project of translating
into English texts by Shmuel HaNagid, whose lyrical work had always
been considered untranslatable. »Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid«
(1996) received the Modern Language Association’s Scaglione Prize for
Translation. Shmuel HaNagid was the renowned 11th century poet and
Jewish prime minister of the Muslim kingdom of Granada. Cole was
granted a TLS translation award for »Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn
Gabirol« (2001), an equally challenging translation of the philosopher,
poet, and mystic, who was a younger contemporary of Shmuel HaNagid and
combined Arabic form and aesthetics with a Hebraic world-view. Cole’s
edition also includes comprehensive annotations and an introduction to
Gabirol’s work. Cole is now working on a comprehensive anthology of
medieval Hebrew poetry, entitled »The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry
from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492« Further authors
translated from modern Hebrew and Arabic into English by Peter Cole
include Avraham Ben Yitzhak, Harold Schimmel and Yoel Hoffmann, as well
as the poets Aharon Shabtai and Taha Muhammad Ali. Cole’s own poetry
has conveyed, from the very beginning, his deep fascination with
medieval lyrical structure and technique. The early poem »Rift« won the
General Electric Foundation Award for Younger Writers in 1985 and
became, in 1989, the title of his first original and highly acclaimed
poetry collection. Critics praised the fusion of medieval lyrical
elements and realistic colloquialisms as well as the unique sensual
power that Cole creates by confronting visionary and actual perception.
Ten years later, his second original collection, »Hymns & Qualms«
(1998), shows his poetic work to be deeply rooted in medieval Hebrew
and Arabic traditions without, however, losing touch with current
events. Quotations from sources as disparate as Pentagon spokesmen,
Theodor W. Adorno, witnesses to a 1994 massacre in Hebron, and a 9th
century court poet from Baghdad are woven into the poetry, thus forming
musical incantations and striking counterpoints, while simultaneously
expressing a firm political conviction against fanaticism. Peter Cole
lives in Jerusalem where he and his wife are the directors of Ibis
Editions, which publishes literature of the Levant.
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