The books of Mois Benarroch: Review The Immigrant's Lament by Mois Benarroch

Review by thewoostercode -- The Immigrant's Lament

4 out of 4 stars

The Immigrant’s Lament by Mois Benarroch is a contemplative collection of poetry, originally published in Hebrew in 1994 and translated into English by Moben Publishing in 2016. Benarroch is a renowned Sephardic Jewish poet and author who writes in Hebrew and Spanish. Born in Tetouan, Morroco in 1959, his family moved to Israel, both a strange land and homeland to him, when he was 12; and it is these experiences of living between cultures that influences the body of his work, and lies at the heart of The Immigrant’s Lament, in particular.

The book features fifty-three poems that grapple with themes as diverse as war, injustice, religion, politics, romantic love, belonging, family and identity. Benarroch has an easy conversational style to his poetry that it is incredibly vivid, painfully self-aware and delightfully humorous. Yet he quickly moves from image to image, and leaves behind a prevailing sense of restlessness which is echoed in his poems that never focus on any one idea or path, but explore multiples ones. And though, at first, that may seem odd or off-putting, it makes senses when considered in the context of the two poems that bookend the collection.

The first poem, ‘The Immigrant’s Lament’, and the last poem, ‘Self-portrait of the Poet in the Family Mirror', are the longest in the book, and draw upon his life experiences and the literatures of the countries he has lived in. They give us an opening and a closing shot that layers over all of the collection’s themes with two central ones that form the burden of the immigrant’s lament: that of being a stranger who looks for something better but consistently finds loss. Benarroch’s immigrant has an additional lament which is that of the artistic creator who is conflicted, seeking to write poetry that is either flawed and authentic or that is masterful and critically acclaimed. It is these poems that I enjoyed the most because I am a person who is simultaneously a part of several cultures and yet foreign to them all.

Benarroch crosses borders whether they be religious, geographical, literary or emotional and takes us into the space in between things in a ceaseless exploration for a certainty that can only be rejected. This is aptly encapsulated in the line, ‘looks for freedom, scared of limitations’; freedom here can refer to achieving creative genius, love, fame, fortune and so on. However, regardless of where these explorations may take us, the feeling out of place and yearning to leave always remain whatever else changes.

There is an undercurrent of quiet optimism that is evident throughout the collection, one that asserts a belief that better days will come. This optimism is driven by the poetry itself. It is by writing poems that the immigrant can anchor himself in a world without solid borders, and it is writing poetry that remains the only constant throughout the physical and temporal transitions. And so, it is in poetry that the stranger in The Immigrant’s Lament can wait for and hope to find a sense of belonging as a recognised poet, and a loved human.

The Immigrant’s Lament is an honest and intense expression of the loss of those who have failed to connect with people and places, and have struggled to find lasting purpose, because their nature forces them to live life in transition.

I give this book a rating of 4 out of 4 stars. It was an easy decision to arrive at. This particular translation is clear and free of errors. I would recommend this book to poetry readers and anyone from a multicultural background who has had trouble reconciling the worlds to which they belong.

******
The Immigrant's Lament
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon