Vox Populi
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Chana Bloch: A Marriage
Theirs was the one with the noisy bedsprings.
How does a child solve a riddle like that?
Scritchity-screech
—are they fighting again?
Theirs was a marriage of drums and cymbals,
a clashing-and-carping, nagging-and-clamoring
performed day in, day out.
Your mother wanted me dead or alive.
His story of the year they met, retold
in the cancer ward. He was teasing her.
She was laughing too! And I looked away
as if I’d caught them in the act.
Out in the corridor she outdid his story:
“Daddy wanted to make love.
I told him, But honey, your back!
You know what your father answered?
There’s nothing wrong with my front.”
I watched her shave him in the hospital bed.
She was so tender it left me confused
—one hand cupped to his chin, the other
stroking his cheek with the razor.
From Swimming in the Rain: Selected Poems 1980-2015 (Autumn House Press, 2016)
Chana Bloch (1940-2017) was a poet, translator, scholar, and teacher. During her lifetime she authored six books of poems and six books of translations of Hebrew poetry both ancient and contemporary. She also authored a critical study on George Herbert. Bloch was professor emerita of English literature and creative writing at Mills College, where she directed the creative writing program.
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Chana’s work with which I’m familiar, I’ve definitely enjoyed and treasured. I clearly need to read more. Are those Autumn House collections available.
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Yes, they are! The link to her selected poems is below the poem.
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So wonderful to read a Chana Bloch poem this morning. Superb poet and translator.
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What a gorgeous, tender poem. Those images stay for a while.
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I almost gasped with ah-ha ness, remembering Pam and my own Scritchity-screeches from those tell-tale bedsprings. Sometimes we two noisome-Newsomes would hear a follow up from our one year old son John rattling his crib. We of course curtailed our escapades to attend to his needs. Pam told me we needed a solution to this…so we bought ourselves a new springless bed.
Brilliant poet Chana Bloch is. And thanks to Vox and her for the memories. and for being up front with her memories of tenderness.
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Thanks, Jim. Chana was a gift to all of us.
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What a lovely memory, Jim!
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It’s good to wake up with a grin. Thank you for this.
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“There’s nothing wrong with my front.” That sounds like a remark that I might make. I bet she was great to be around.
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She was, Leo. Chana was first my professor at Mills College and later my friend. I revered her, and wish I could still tap on the door of her home and be met with her marvelous smile.
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Thanks for this, Annie.
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Such brilliance to waken to and humour is never far from her door. Its wonderful, Michael you lit her candle this morning to bring us that exquisite light. I need that light every day.
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I published three of Chana’s books at Autumn House. She was a joy to work with.
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