The Voices Israel Group of Poets

in English

2022 Voices Anthology Launch

This year once again, we had hoped to hold the launch of Volume 48 of the Voices Israel Anthology with a face-to-face event at the Netanya Stage Bar. But this was too optimistic -- amid warnings of an upcoming flu-plus-Covid wave this winter, our members preferred to play it safe! So on October 25th 2022, 41 people -- mainly members but including a few guests and non-members whose poems had been published in the Anthology -- gathered via Zoom. Several came from outside Israel - from the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, and even from Australia (though the latter via a proxy reading of his poem - it was, after all, 3 am in Australia!)

30 poets read one of their poems from the Anthology, and another four asked for proxy readers, making a total of 34 poets from the 75 whose poems was published in the Anthology.

This year we managed to send out the Anthology to our members in mid-August, even though the submission period ended a month later than usual. Once again, we received many compliments on its appearance and its content. The design is due to Avril Meallem, who was unable to continue to produce the Anthology but whose templates from last year we used for it; the content, as usual, to Dina Yehuda, our long-term, dedicated Chief Editor. She has once again produced a volume containing a series of quality poems arranged in a logical flow of themes. We can't express our gratefulness and admiration with a presentation via Zoom, so have sent her the next best thing - a Steimatsky gift card as a small token of our appreciation. 

Heartfelt thanks also to the new editorial team of Eli Ben-Joseph, Wendy Blumfield, and Elana Dorfman.  They have all devoted a tremendous amount of work, giving considered attention to hundreds of poems, and they can be justly proud of the result! Thanks too, to Helen bar-Lev, for agreeing to the use of her lovely painting "Detail of Jerusalem" which adds so much to the Anthology's front cover, and for doing the final proof-read. And last but not least, to our Treasurer Chanita Millman, who not only handles the financial side of anthology orders but also mails out, with unfailing promptness and accuracy, the right number of copies to members and others who have ordered them, year after year. An unenviable but not thankless task: we are truly grateful. In this as in so many Voices activities - we couldn't do it without her!

As usual, we recorded the event on Zoom, and the video will be uploaded to our YouTube channel. Our secretary Pesach will send all our members a link to view it on YouTube, and we'll also put a link below to view it by.  Here we've put a few screenshots from the video, to give an idea of the feel of the event.

We look forward to seeing everyone next year at the launch of the 2023 Anthology - when hopefully we will finally be back to real meetings!

More information about the annual Anthology and how to submit poems to it is detailed under Anthology from the main menu.

Below are a few screen-shots to give the feel of the event:

And, from left to right, some of our poets: Julie Mendelson, Mark Elber (joining us from the USA), Iris Dan, Yiskah Rosenfeld (also attending from the USA), and Rachel Neiman, reading their poems.