Israeli poet speaks at Maginnes Tuesday

The talk, which is free and open to the public, is titled “Placing the Voice: The Personal and the Political, Israel 2003.”
Back has lived in the Galilee, an area in Israel with a large Arab population, for more than 20 years. Her personal perspective on both sides of the Israeli conflict is reflected in her poems, which track the heartbreaking cycle of violence and loss defining the lives of Palestinians and Israelis today.
Last year, she participated in a reading series, “A Poetry of a Punished Land,” which brought Israeli poets to the U.S. to present their works at universities such Princeton, Harvard, and Wesleyan.
Back, who received a Ph.D. in postmodern poetry from Hebrew University, is a lecturer in English literature at Tel-Aviv University and Oranim College and a creative writing instructor at Bar-Ilan University. She is the author of two poetry collections, Azimuth and The Buffalo Poems, and a monograph Led by Language: The Poetry and Poetics of Susan Howe.
The program is sponsored by Lehigh’s Berman Center for Jewish Studies, the Women’s Studies Program, the Modern Languages and Literature department, and the Paul S. Levy Fund.
For information, call (610) 758-3352.