Lali Tsipi Michaeli
Lali Tsipi Michaeli (; born 1964) is an Israeli poet. Biography. She was born in Georgia and immigrated to Israel with her family at the age of 7. She studied comparative literature, anthropology and sociology at Bar-Ilan University. She published six poetry books. Her books have been translated and published in the United States, Russia, Georgia, France, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Italy and India, among other countries. Her poems were published in "Iton 77", "Moznaim", "Efes Shtaim", "Mosaic", "Achshav", "Haaretz", "Yedioth Ahronoth", "Maariv", "Sinn und Form", "Times of Israel" and "Poetry International Web", as well as in online  literary journals and international anthologies. She has participated in poetry festivals worldwide. In 2009–2010, she created Poetry Video Art posted on "Ynet", showing her reading poetry to passersby. In 2018, she participated in a residency program for writers in New York. Over the years she taught a Hebrew language at Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She lives in Tel Aviv with the architect Zvi Pfeffer and has one son. Poetry. Prof. Gabriel Moked described her as an urban-erotic poet. In an interview to Israeli daily "Haaretz", Michaeli explained how she regards  the role of poetry: “Hebrew poetry is like a broken record that is stuck and has stopped playing… there is a need for merging human existence with the desire to break through it in whatever way you can. The repetition of patterns is not a good recipe for poetry’s survival… I am really fascinated by poetry that shatters barriers. Poetry that doesn’t recycle itself. That doesn’t care what people will say. Poetry that is written from within itself. Without the boundaries of content or form. I don’t like crybaby poetry… I don’t like gushy poetry ; it’s pathetic.” Prof. Admiel Kosman wrote in a review of her book "The Mad House" (הבית המשוגע) in "Iton 77": “One of the strongest books I have come across in the field of poetry is Lali Tsipi Michaeli’s The Mad House. My feeling as a reader was that in front of me there was a poet, mature and accurate in the sense that every word in her book was placed in its accurate spot where it had to be said. The poems were not written willingly, but out of a force that drove the poet to write, and  to me this is the strongest sign for quality poetry… In this intense book, the poet sings the song of the shaky house of anyone looking at their own life (in this sense, the “house” is a metaphor for the life by which each one of us is trying to create a permanent hold of reality), even after all they desired has been given to them and they are ostensibly very happy in all possible senses – with an eye that almost breaks at the sight of the viewer – popping the question on the reason for that existence and whatever exists  or does not exist beyond it.” Jonathan Berg diagnoses a new poetic language in Michaeli's poetry and writes in "Walla!": "Michaeli is very busy with the new: in the search for new ways to express and reflect reality, this is true both in the formal side and in the content related to the content of her poetry. Michaeli's poems are not" disciplined ", the basic order that leads them is movement of consciousness and search in language of expression to that Free movement". Her book Papa corresponds with her deceased father. Poet and poetry reviewer Yotam Reuveny writes about  this book in a review in the Israeli daily Haaretz: “Anyone who has lost a father would relate to the poems of Lali Tsipi Michaeli's elegy, Papa. The poems, collecting memories from various periods in the life of the father and thoughts of the daughter after his death, create a harsh picture of inconsolable loss… The whole book is written in this tone, the tone of a direct appeal to the dead father, to make him know what his living daughter is undergoing… This is a touching book, in which every poem seeks to be the final farewell to  Papa, while becoming yet another expression of the dire need to still have him around.” In 2011 she self-published the protest anthology Resistance (התנגדות) comprising poetry of 22 living and dead poets. In the introduction to the anthology she lays out her believing self in poetry and claims "Poetry in itself is a resistance…an alternative to our fact of being", and in an interview to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Michaeli sheds light about what she intended in the book and the manner in which she chose the poems to be included there: “The challenge was to find rebellious  poetry that is also good poetry and which does not fall into the niche of protest poetry. In my opinion, poetry is an act of rebellion. Rebellion in that grey area that is imposed upon us as human beings. We are forced to survive and that is why poets who are very conscious of themselves and of their existence are also very fragile individuals. To a great extent, they are pushed into a paradoxical corner. They are both inside and outside life. When they are outside life, to a great extent, they endanger their very existence.” Lali Tsipi Michaeli Lali