
Di Kupe. Poema (The Pile: A Poem) by Peretz MarkishKiev: Kultur Lige, 1922.Design: Chaikov, Iosef
(via isotype75)

&amp;#8220;Markish&rsquo;s most important poetic achievement at that point was his long poem&nbsp;Di kupe&nbsp;(The Heap; 1921 [Warsaw], 1922 [Kiev]). Its horrifying opening image is a pile of corpses laid out in the middle of the marketplace of a&nbsp;shtetl&nbsp;in Ukraine after a&nbsp;pogrom. The poet gives voice both to the unburied and to himself in a series of poetic monologues whose intent is to shock with their blasphemy while expressing the desire to freeze time in an apocalyptic desecration of God and death. The sharply expressionistic language and extensive use of Slavicisms create an ostensibly low stylistic register. At the same time, the poem features such classic stanza forms as the sonnet, a form well represented in Markish&rsquo;s work in his later years. The assonant rhymes, which Markish introduced in&nbsp;Di kupe&nbsp;and in his other works from that period, became one of the hallmarks of his poetics.&amp;#8221;&nbsp;(via YIVO)