NOVEMBER 4 • 2021 | 43

N

ow past 80, Ed Codish continues to 
work on his poetry nearly every day, 
producing new and inventive works. 
Codish drew significant international notice 
with the publication of his sonnet sequence, 
Sailing to Gaza, some 40 years ago. Hailed as 
one of the finest poets working in English in 
Israel, he dismissed the praise as “the equiva-
lent of being called one of the finest downhill 
skiers in all of Uganda.
” 
In reality, he is not so alone as a creative 
writer working in English. They have an 
organization, the Israel Association of 
Writers in English (IAWE) which produces 
an ongoing journal, ARC, year after year pre-
senting the best English fiction and poetry 
from Israel. Codish has edited volumes of 
ARC.
The forthcoming volume, Ed Codish: 
Selected Poems, includes a total of 266 poems, 
many short works, in addition to reprinting 
the sonnet sequence. The shorter poems, 
many if free form, include delicate love 
poems to Codish’s wife, Susann; apprecia-

tions of the pigeons who live on his window-
sill; imagined encounters with the leading 
poets of ancient China; meditations on 
Jewish learning; reconsiderations of political 
credos; expressions of admiration for natural 
beauty in the Israeli landscape and in the 
poet’s garden; and contemplations of the 
consolations — if any — of old age. 
The sonnet sequence, Sailing to Gaza, tells 
of a man who is determined to reconstruct 
his life after a bitter divorce by building a 
sailboat in the desert. Each winter, when 
the floods come, he takes his boat to a wadi 
and sails a little farther into the desert. This 
impractical mythic journey helps him and 
also provides material for his funny, poi-
gnant and wise reflections. 
You do not have to like poetry to find 
something to love in this volume. That is no 
accident. Codish explains why he insists on 
writing accessible poetry: “I wanted to talk 
and be understood,
” he says. 
Nearly all the poems contain surprises: 
unexpected turns of phrase, slant insights, 

words from different neighborhoods that 
rub together and produce beauty. Poet 
William Minor writes, “The poetry of Ed 
Codish offers the best, the most engaging 
effects the art form can possess.
” 

MEMORIES OF OAK PARK
In his religious poetry, Codish says, “I want-
ed to write as a Jew as naturally as Donne 
writes as a Christian.
”
Codish, originally from Camden, New 
Jersey, studied at various schools around the 
United States, earning his master’s of fine 
arts at the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop. 
As faculty adviser to college Jewish stu-
dents, he developed a deeper commitment 
to Judaism and Zionism, which led to his 
aliyah. After decades in Israel, he returned in 
the 1980s to America, where he lived for 10 
years in Oak Park, Mich. Twenty years ago, 
Codish returned to Israel, where he resides 
with his wife in Pardesiya. 
Recalling his decade in Oak Park, the poet 
remembers that he and his wife hosted writ-
ing workshops at their home, inviting high 
school students to critique and encourage 
each other’s writing, while enjoying home-
made pastries. “I learned how to be a teacher 
there,
” he says. He also notes that “being a 
poet has helped me be a good teacher of lit-
erature and writing.
” 
Susann recalls her husband’s admiration 
for the late Rabbi Eliezer Cohen, a master 
teacher who taught Jewish texts to school 
students during the day and to adults nearly 
every night of the week. Rabbi Cohen was 
also a lifelong learner; when Ed Codish sug-
gested they study Franz Rosenzweig’s Star of 
Redemption (1921) they began a one-night-a- 
week study partnership in this difficult work 
of Jewish philosophy. Ed and Susann Codish 
were among the founders of Congregation 
Or Chadash, where Rabbi Cohen served as 
rabbi. 

POETRY

Ed Codish: Selected Poems 
by former Oak Parker.

Ed Codish: Selected Poems. Author: Ed 
Codish, illustrated by Jacob Yona Horenstein
Trade Paperback: ISBN 978-1-948403-29-
0, $24.95, 416 pages (including front- and 
back-matter)
The book will also be available as an ebook 
(ISBN 978-1-948403-30-6) on all major plat-
forms; price is still under discussion.
There will be a hardcover edition, ISBN 978-1-

948403-28-3, that (at least for now) will not be 
sold through “trade” channels but will be avail-
able only by direct order; a very limited num-
ber of signed copies will be made available. 
Hardcovers will be shipped from Israel.
Published by Kasva Press LLC, Alfei 
Menashe, Israel and St. Paul, Minnesota. 
Website: http://www.kasvapress.com
Publication date: Nov. 16, 2021.

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A People’s Poet

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