Ricky Rapoport Friesem

a sampling

Book Collector
I am a book
you’ll never read.You’ll stroke my cover
run your fingers down my spine,
riffle through me, feel my heft
and nod with satisfaction.
But read me? Never.I make a nice addition
to your bookshelf.
Great book.
In good condition.
Barely used.Afterlife
Strange to think
this teapot
will live on
long after me
and someone else
will pour the tea
and maybe
for a fleeting moment
see my image
think of me
there pouring teaand then the talk
will flow and wash away
that flotsam thought
and they will sit there
drinking tea
around my teapot
without me.Winner of the Amy Kitchener international Senior Poet Laureate AwaradAddress BookFor me
you lived
until the day I excised you
with one mean stroke
and with that stroke excised
another part of mefrom the cramped pages
whose additions and deletions
mark the passages
of all the lifetimes
that together are the sum
of mediminished
by your death.
Again this year
there will be
fewer greeting cards
to write.We SistersWe speak in code
the two of us, our words
grown heavy with the gathered
moss of memories that
only we two share.When days go by
and you don’t call
I think of what will be
when only one of us
remains, left speaking
to the empty air in words
stripped weightless
with no one out there
who understands
what we two sisters share.To RuthThe Moabite
who was not born
of us.Walk swiftly, Ruth
and don’t look back
for nothing good can come
of this insanity.Love of green eyes and gentle smile
has drawn you to this rocky land
from whence springs hate
whose depths
are far beyond
your scope to fathom.Ruth, Ruth my love
heed me and turn back now
to rainy lanesand teddy bears
and passions
cooled
by mists
of far more temperate climes.RachelI found her
where she’d always been,
my Rachel. In Haran.Beside the village well
she stood. Just as the
Bible says. And she was
far more comely than
all the words and pictures in
my head. A Gauguin skin,
thick auburn hair, and eyes
green as the sea she’d never
seen, nor would in that sere land
where yellow dust blows up in clouds
and gnats dance in the air. Instead
of a clay water jug, she held
an infant wrapped in rags,
another pulled her arm. Her arms
were thin. She was so small.
A child herself. And yet
her gaze was bold. She mocked me
with those sea-green eyes
and so I turned and fled.
And left her there
in Haran
where she now weeps and waits for me.
My Rachel. Mother. Matriarch. Mine.Honorable Mention in the 2007 Lilith Magazine’s Charlotte Neuberger Poetry CompetitionMoonYou moon
you waxing moon
you heavy birthing bursting moon
you beaming glowing orb of moon
you waning shrinking
sliver moonyou pushing pulling meddling moon
you wax me wane me light me dark me
fill me drain me rule me
moonBrief Encounters
In the intimacy of the crowded shelter
I try to avert my gaze from the comic pajamas
of a neighbor whom I know only by his lofty title
and leather briefcase
from the tattered housecoat of the woman next door
who is always smartly dressed
from the towel-wrapped blonde who hugs
the shadowed corner of the crowded space
where no one is likely to ask questions
where we wait
suppressing panic, anticipating
the boom, waiting for the all-clear
and when it comes
trooping upstairs to go our separate ways
without a mention of the destiny we’ve briefly shared.Peace
My friend sent me
a photo from somewhere
in Sweden. She is sitting
beside a cobalt blue lake,
wrapped in a white robe,
knees to her chest, head
tilted to the sun. In the
background, a steep
ochre cliff, into which
someone has hammered
a row of towel pegs,
perfectly rounded
and painted cobalt blue
to match the lake.
And I think how wonderful
it must be to live where a row
of towel pegs in the middle
of nowhere still matters.

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description

REALITY CHECK
Word Sonnets
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Kipod Press 2012 74 pagesMIKLAT
(Poems in Hebrew)
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Eked House Press 2021 75 pagesRUBY OSEH BALAGAN
Illustrated Children’s Book
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Illustrated by Harriet Goitein
Niv Books 2022MUMBAI LUCK
A Travel Journal
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
The Dallas Community Chapbook Series 24 pagesGIMME SHELTER
Selected Poems
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Kipod Press 2019 74 pagesMEKURKAAT
(Poems in Hebrew)
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Eked House Press 2013 64 pagesKEEP YOUR DISTANCE
Word Sonnets for Corona Times
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Kipod Press 2020 84 pagesLAISSEZ-PASSER
Poems 2001-2009
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Kipod Press 2009 115 pages(parentheses)
Poems for the 21st Century
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Kipod Press 2006 128 pagesFRUITS OF THE EARTH
A Harvest of Recipes from the Land of Israel
Ricky Friesem and Naomi Moushine
Illustrated by Rickie Lauffer
Adar Publishing 1983 107 pagesMY INTIFADA
Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Pudding house Chapbook Series 2006 26 pagesTHE JOY OF ISRAEL
112 Recipes that are simple and different
Ricky Friesem and Gerry Hornreich
Steimatzky 128 pages 1995

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publications

ONLINE PUBLICATIONS
Just the Jasmine Jewish Fiction.com. 2018
House of David Women in Journalism; First Place Essay 2010INDIVIDUAL POEMS, ESSAYS AND STORIES
In a large number of journals, among them:
Tiferet Magazine: What’s in a Name, 2018 Non-Fiction Prize Winner
Moment Magazine: Walls and In Transit, both in 2003
The Jewish Daily Forward Knesset Eliyahu Synagogue December, 2008
Journeys Rajasthan Rapunzel, Eden Waters Press 2009
Lucidity Kitchen Blues 2006
Muddy Water Review Frequent Flyer2010
Popshot Magazine Moon 2012
International Peace Festival Anthology Help
Jewish Currents Annual Calendar Jam Session I and II
Haaretz English Edition HaTikvah August 25.2015
Israel Short Stories Ang-Lit Press Stuck on Jew 2011
Love in Israel Anthology Ang-Lit Press What She Couldn’t Say and Scheherazade on a Camel both in 2013Poems and Stories in numerous issues of:
arc the Annual Anthology of the Israel Association of Writers in English
VOICES Israel Annual Anthology of Poems from Israel and Abroad
Poetica Magazine Contemporary Jewish Writing
…and more

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awards

Voices Reuben Rose International Poetry Competition First Prize Director’s Notes 2016 and David’s Shield 2021 and Honorable mention, 2006,2007, 2011
International Amy Kitchener Senior Poet Laureate Award Afterlife 2010
Women in Judaism Multidisciplinary Journal First Place, Essay Contest House of David 2015
Tiferet Magazine First Place, Essay Contest What’s in a Name 2018
Dallas Poet’s Community Chapbook Award Mumbai Luck: A Travel Journal 2014
Writer’s Digest First Prize, 15th Annual Award for Self-Published Poetry Book Parentheses 2006
Poetica Magazine: Contemporary Jewish Writing: Honorable Mention 2005 and 2006
Lilith Magazine Honorable Mention in the Charlotte Neuberger Poetry Contest 2007
Jewish Currents Finalist Raynes Poetry Competition 2018
Atlanta Review Finalist 2010
Dancing Poetry Competition Third Place 2015
Anna Rosenberg Award Finalist 2016
…and more

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Books

ENGLISH
Keep Your Distance Word Sonnets for Corona Times Ricky Rapoport Friesem 2020 Israel Kipod Books
Gimme Shelter Ricky Rapoport Friesem 2019 Israel Kipod Books
Mumbai Luck A Travel Journal Ricky Rapoport Friesem 2014 Winner Dallas Poets Community Chapbook Series; USA Dallas Poets Community Press
Reality Check Word Sonnets Ricky Rapoport Friesem 2012 Israel Kipod Books
Laissez-Passer Poems 2001-2009 Ricky Rapoport Friesem Israel 2009 Kipod Books
(Parentheses) Poems for the 21st CenturyRicky Rapoport Friesem Israel 2006 Kipod Books; Winner 2006 Writers Digest Self-Published Books Award
My Intifada Chapbook 2005 Ricky Rapoport Friesem USA Pudding House Press
The Joy of Israel Cook Book Ricky Friesem and Gerry Hornreich 1995 Israel Steimatzky
Fruits of the Earth. A Harvest of Recipes from the Land of Israel Ricky Friesem and Naomi Moushine 1983 Israel Adar PublishingHEBREW
Mekurkat A Poetry Collection Ricky Rapoport Friesem 2013 Israel Beit Eked Publishers
Miklat A Poetry Collection Ricky Rapoport Friesem 2021 Israel Beit Eked Publishers
Ruby Oseh Balagan A Children’s Book Ricky Friesem and Harriet Goitein 2023 Israel Niv Publishers

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About

RICKY FRIESEM
Pen Name: Ricky Rapoport FriesemJournalist, filmmaker, poet, dreamer, doer, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother…and the order varies daily.I have been writing professionally for more than 50 years: film scripts, essays, science writing, cook books, short stories, an unfinished memoir and recently, mostly poetry.Academically speaking…
I attended the University of Toronto, University of Buffalo, Wayne State University in Detroit and the University of Michigan in Ann ArborI. (We traveled around a lot in our younger days.) My BA is in Journalism and Sociology, my MA.in Library Science, both from the University of Michigan.
I studied toward a Ph.D in Audio/Visual Education at the University of Michigan just as the field was going digital…(I quit. No regrets. Computers are my nemesis)Working/Writing Experience
I wrote my first poem, mourning the death of American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Little did I know). I was eight years old (so now you can figure out how old I am) and I’ve been writing ever since. In the Labor Zionist Youth Movement, HeChalutz HaTzair,which I joined at 10, I wrote and edited the newsletters and special programs. When my children were very young, I freelanced. Subsequently I was in charge of PR and Publications at the Jewish Community Center in Detroit, and worked later as a Children’s Librarian for Ann Arbor Michigan’s Public Library. In parallel, I was among the founders, and later Director of the Jewish Cultural School of Ann Arbor which flourishes to this day.In 1972, I moved to Israel with my family and took on a job in the Press and Publications Department off the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot where I worked for 25 years, first as a science journalist, documentary filmmaker, publications editor, and ultimately as Head of the Department. In my final 12 years at the Institute, I was Special Assistant to the President of the Weizmann Institute.Since my retirement, I have returned to my first love: writing poetry, essays, and short stories and my work has appeared in Moment Magazine, The Jewish Daily Forward, Tiferet Magazine, Jewish Currents Magazine, Popshot Magazine, Poetica Magazine, Muddy River Poetry Review, Israel Short Story Anthology, Tel Aviv Short Story Anthology, Voices Magazine, arc, Shirat Mada (in Hebrew), Jewish Fiction.com, Woman in Judaism , among others.I have published seven poetry collections in English: Parentheses, Laissez-Passer, My Intifada, Reality Check, Mumbai Luck, Gimme Shelter and Keep Your Distance. Parentheses won First Prize in the American Writer’s Digest Annual Self-published Poetry Book Contest in 2015. Mumbai Luck won the Dallas Poet’s Community 2014 Chapbook Award.Two of my collections, Mekurkat and Miklat have been translated into Hebrew and published by Beit Eked in Israel.A Little More Background
I was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where my father, who had arrived from Poland a few years before my birth, headed the local Yiddish Folkshule. When I was one year old, my parents moved to Toronto, where I lived until the age of 20, when I married (Yes! And am still married to the same man/) and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. I studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and we lived in that lovely University town for many years, prior to our move to Israel in 1972 with our three sons when my physicist husband accepted a position at the Weizmann Institute of Science. We now have 12 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren (so far), most living in Israel.Yiddish permeated my early life. My father was a Yiddish educator, journalist and literary critic in the Yiddish press and a political activist. My mother taught Yiddish in the local Yiddish Folkshule and I spoke only Yiddish until I entered kindergarten. Our home was a meeting place for Yiddish writers, The poet, H. Leivick figures prominently in my memory and his poem, Aibik,( Eternally) remains a touchstone of my writing. It was my father who introduced me to the poetry of the Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of me, a little girl of nine, standing alone on the stage of the Victory Theater in Toronto, reciting Sutzkever’s poem, Die Lehrerin Mira, at the Toronto Jewish community’s rally celebrating the end of world War II.Most of my parents’ family were murdered in the Holocaust. On my father’s side, I come from a long line of rabbis and distinguished scholars, including the famous Talmudist known by his acronym, the Shach. My mother’s side, Belarus Jews, were already secular when she was born. My father broke away from organized religion but his love for Jewish tradition and scholarship permeated my childhood. And my mother passed down to me her longing for the Russian literature and music of her youth . She had me reading Turgenev at ag 10! .My writing, is powered by the intense, varied culture in which I was raised. Alfred Lord Tennyson said it best in his poem, Ulysses : “I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades forever and forever when we move.”

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