Edith Covensky
Edith Covensky is a Hebrew poet living in the United States and senior lecturer in Hebrew and Israeli Studies at Wayne State University. She has authored 34 books of poetry, in Hebrew, bilingually in Hebrew and English, trilingually in Hebrew, Arabic and English, and in Romanian and Spanish.
Early life
Covensky was born in Bucharest, Romania, grew up in Haifa, Israel, and presently resides in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Growing up in Haifa, she went to "Maalot Ha'neveem" elementary school, and continued high school at Alliance Francaise Israelite where she focused on Hebrew and French literature. She served in the Israel Defense Forces as a code-breaker. Following her military discharge in 1965, she traveled to the United States.Professional career
Since 1987 Covensky has been teaching Hebrew and Israeli Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.She is a member of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew, and of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel; editor of Pseifas, an Israeli literary Journal dedicated to classical and Hebrew poetry; and a member of the Association of Alexander Dumas the Father, located in Paris, France.
Covensky started writing Hebrew poetry in 1981, publishing her first poem "Small Blessings" in Bitzaron, a distinguished literary journal issued by New York University, in 1982. She has published to date 34 poetry books. Her numerous individual poems have been published in Israel, Canada, and in the United States.
French Professor Michael Giordano, prefaced her poetry in the volume In the Beginning, Gvanim, Tel-Aviv, 2017.
Jeffrey L. Covensky prefaced Life as Fiction
A Hebrew version was published in Pseifas, 2017.
Critical response
Covensky's poetry has been the subject of the volume Under a Silky Sky: The Symbolist Poetry of Edith Covensky, written by scholar and literary critic.He described her work in a 1996 review as "lyrical poetry", praising it for its "esthetic dexterity" in "composition, theme, and metaphorical artistry".
In a 2012 review he described her work as "metaphysical poetry". He likens it to the work of impressionist painters, which must be observed from the correct distance to be fully seen.
Works
The following books are published by Eked Publishers, Tel Aviv, Israel; the books are in bi-lingual editions: Hebrew-English unless otherwise specified, translated into English by Edouard and Susann Codish.- Other Words
- Syncopations
- Night Poems
- An Anatomy of Love
- Partial Autobiography
- Origins
- Synesis
- Jerusalem Poems
- Poetics
- After Auschwitz
- Metamorphosis and Other Poems
- Steps
- Electrifying Love
- Collage
- Zohar
- Anatomy of Love: Selected Poems 1992-2002
- Variations on a Theme by Albert Camus
- Black Rain
- True Love
- Testimony
- In the Beninning
- Pentagram: Selected Poems from 2006-2008
- Also Job was a Paradox
- Love Embraces Love
- On the Existence of Love
- Allusion to Auschwitz, edited by Professor Hanna Yaoz Kest. Van Gelder Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
- Matters of Sand
- On the Edge of Water
- Microcosm
- Life as Fiction
- Genesis
- Identities
- Portrait of a Poet, Beth-Eked Sfarim Publishers. Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Published Hebrew-English dialogue book
- , entitled: Where to Go? Jerusalem: Rubin Mass Publishers, 2017.