Nameless Country gathers poems by the Scottish-Jewish poet Arthur "A.C." Jacobs, whose work, somewhat critically neglected in the past, has gained new resonance for twenty-first-century readers. Writing in the shadow of the Holocaust, Jacobs in his poems confronts his complex cultural identity as a Jew in Scotland, as a Scot in England, and as a diaspora Jew in Israel, Italy, Spain and the UK.
A self-made migrant, Jacobs was a wanderer through other lands and lived in search, as he puts it, of the "right language," which "exists somewhere / Like a country." His poems are attuned to linguistic and geographic otherness and to the lingering sense of exile that often persists in a diaspora. In his quiet and philosophical verse we recognise an individual’s struggle for identity in a world shaped by migration, division and dislocation.
Recenzijas
`His unassuming, deliberately prosaic style itself seems a kind of resistance to all forms of grandiloquence and conceit, and it provides the ideal vehicle for his stubborn, Forster-like affirmations of the validity of small private tragedies, measured against the din of history. - Times Literary Supplement
| Acknowledgements |
|
ix | |
| Introduction (Merle L. Bachman) |
|
xi | |
| Background on the Collected Poems (Anthony Rudolf) |
|
xvi | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 | (1) |
|
|
|
4 | (1) |
|
Poem for Innocent Victims of War |
|
|
5 | (1) |
|
|
|
6 | (1) |
|
|
|
7 | (1) |
|
|
|
8 | (1) |
|
|
|
9 | (1) |
|
|
|
10 | (1) |
|
|
|
11 | (1) |
|
|
|
12 | (1) |
|
|
|
13 | (1) |
|
|
|
14 | (3) |
|
2 From The Proper Blessing |
|
|
|
|
|
17 | (1) |
|
|
|
18 | (1) |
|
|
|
19 | (1) |
|
|
|
20 | (1) |
|
Before the Trial of Eichmann |
|
|
21 | (1) |
|
|
|
22 | (1) |
|
|
|
23 | (1) |
|
|
|
24 | (1) |
|
|
|
25 | (1) |
|
|
|
26 | (1) |
|
|
|
27 | (1) |
|
|
|
28 | (1) |
|
|
|
29 | (1) |
|
|
|
30 | (1) |
|
|
|
31 | (1) |
|
|
|
32 | (1) |
|
|
|
33 | (2) |
|
|
|
35 | (1) |
|
|
|
36 | |
|
|
|
27 | (11) |
|
|
|
38 | (1) |
|
|
|
39 | (1) |
|
|
|
40 | (1) |
|
|
|
41 | (1) |
|
|
|
42 | (3) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
45 | (1) |
|
|
|
45 | (1) |
|
|
|
46 | (1) |
|
|
|
46 | (1) |
|
|
|
47 | (1) |
|
|
|
47 | (1) |
|
|
|
48 | (3) |
|
4 `... cold diasporas...' |
|
|
|
|
|
51 | (1) |
|
|
|
52 | (2) |
|
|
|
54 | (1) |
|
|
|
54 | (1) |
|
|
|
55 | (1) |
|
|
|
56 | (1) |
|
|
|
57 | (1) |
|
`Introduction to A Scottish Sequence' |
|
|
58 | (1) |
|
|
|
59 | (1) |
|
A Joke Across the North Sea |
|
|
60 | (1) |
|
`My Fathers Planned Me...' |
|
|
61 | (1) |
|
|
|
62 | (1) |
|
|
|
63 | (1) |
|
`In an East Coast Fishing Village' |
|
|
64 | (1) |
|
|
|
65 | (1) |
|
|
|
66 | (3) |
|
5 `... to my Promised Land' |
|
|
|
|
|
69 | (1) |
|
|
|
70 | (1) |
|
|
|
71 | (1) |
|
|
|
72 | (1) |
|
`Behind the Synagogue...' |
|
|
73 | (1) |
|
Woman Figure, South Turkey |
|
|
74 | (2) |
|
|
|
76 | (1) |
|
|
|
77 | (1) |
|
|
|
78 | (1) |
|
|
|
79 | (1) |
|
|
|
80 | (1) |
|
Sabbath Morning: Mea Shearim |
|
|
81 | (1) |
|
|
|
82 | (1) |
|
|
|
83 | (1) |
|
|
|
84 | (1) |
|
|
|
85 | (2) |
|
|
|
87 | (1) |
|
|
|
88 | (1) |
|
|
|
89 | (1) |
|
To a Teacher of Hebrew Literature |
|
|
90 | (1) |
|
|
|
91 | (4) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
95 | (1) |
|
|
|
96 | (1) |
|
|
|
97 | (1) |
|
|
|
98 | (1) |
|
|
|
98 | (1) |
|
`It's as Though Someone Took an Axe' |
|
|
99 | (1) |
|
|
|
100 | (1) |
|
|
|
101 | (1) |
|
|
|
102 | (1) |
|
|
|
103 | (1) |
|
`Among These Green Hills' |
|
|
104 | (1) |
|
What Are You Talking About? |
|
|
105 | (1) |
|
|
|
106 | (1) |
|
|
|
107 | (1) |
|
|
|
108 | (1) |
|
|
|
109 | |
A.C. (Arthur) Jacobs was born in Glasgow into an Orthodox Jewish family in 1937 and grew up under the shadow of the Holocaust. An erudite and committed poet from a young age, he became a self-made migrant, a wanderer through countries and through other peoples more settled lives. He was a Jew in Scotland, a Scot in England, and a diaspora Jew wherever he travelled. Nameless Country returns selections of A.C. Jacobs poetry to a 21st-century audience. His poems compel our attention because they bear the stamp of their long-ago moment but in their embrace of complex identities, speak clearly to our own.
