The Voices Israel Group of Poets

After having to cancel our biennial two-day residential workshop in 2020 because of Covid-19, we finally, with great joy, held the 2022 one. Once again it was held at the King Solomon Hotel in Netanya which had recently re-opened.

Sadly, a few participants had to cancel last-minute for medical reasons - two of them because they tested positive for Covid, reminding us that the pandemic had not yet entirely faded. So on May 25th , the remaining 23 poets gathered to celebrate poetry and friendship, in beautiful surroundings.

There were three presentations,  each followed by a writing exercise and time for participants to read the poems written during the exercise period,
plus a panel session:

• After arrival and check-in in the early afternoon, we opened with a presentation by Judy Koren on "Rhyme and How to Jazz it Up" - covering
        classic rhyme and the various forms of "slant" or "subtle" rhyme bringing it up to date.

• In the evening after dinner, there was an animated panel presentation and discussion on the subject of "Getting Published," covering publication
        of poems in literary magazines and of collections via Amazon. Panelists were Judy Koren and Eli Ben-Joseph on the subject of magazines, and
       Yochanan Zaqantov on the subject of book publishing.
  
  
• The next morning, in the first workshop session of that day, we had two related presentations: Yochanan Zaqantov on Japanese poetic forms, and
        Elana Dorfman on Imagist poetry.
  
  
• Pesach Rotem, our current Secretary and humorous poet par excellence, rounded off the workshop with a session on humor in poetry.

This workshop received rave reviews in the follow-up evaluation, which once again was organized by our indefatigable membership coordinator, Yochanan Zaqantov. Many thanks to the presenters, to Yochanan for organizing the feedback, to Susan Olsburgh for handling all the negotiation
with the hotel, and to our workshop coordinator, Elana Dorfman, for getting it all together.

The participants were invited to submit poems written during the workshop, or edited versions of them, for publication in the workshop chapbook, to be produced by Judy Koren. Once it has been printed (scheduled for approximately August 2022), both Voices Israel members and the general public may order a copy directly from this website, using our PayPal Me account, by clicking on the following link:

You will be asked to log in to your PayPal account and then fill in the amount to send Voices Israel and a note saying what the payment is for. Please also send an email to whoever is distributing them  (currently, our President Judy Koren: president.voices@gmail.com) giving your current postal address.

A few photos of the event: