1 See Tamir–Ghez, Nomi, Binary Oppositions and Thematic Decoding in E. E. Cummings and Eudora Welty, PTL 3 (1978): 235–248. For a discussion of equivalence and opposition, see Jurij Lotman, The Structure of the Artistic Text (Ann Arbor, 1977), pp. 78–93.Google Scholar

2 On ungrammaticality see, for example, Riffaterre, Michael, Semiotics of Poetry (Bloomington, 1978), chap. 1 et passim.Google Scholar

3 The first poem Gilboa wrote in direct response to the loss of his family seems to have been Ani yatom (Im an Orphan), published in the Jewish Brigades mimeographed Hebrew journal Lafiayal (For the Soldier) in Italy, May 7, 1943. The poem was later collected in Sheva reshuyot (Seven Domains, 1949) under the title Yetom (Orphanhood).

4 It is virtually impossible to determine from the original dates of publication of the 1943–1949 poems when exactly most of these works were written. Having published only a small number of his wartime poems in Lahayal (also entitled Hahayal Haivri [The Hebrew Soldier]), Gilboa, in the postwar 1946–49 period, set about publishing dozens of poems written during the war in Israeli newspapers and journals, including Haarets, Davar, Al hamishmar, and Gazit. The poems appeared in a helter–skelter fashion, with no hint of the chronological order of their composition. Moreover, when Gilboa collected the poems for Sheva reshuyot, for the most part he grouped them topically rather than chronologically, thus further obscuring their actual chronology.

5 Although written in 1946, as annotated by Gilboa, the poems publication appears to have been put off more than two years. However, the original publication is unclear. The Genazim Literary Archives index of Gilboas works in Tel Aviv shows a publication entitled Petiha lishti hayagon veerev hasimha, Al hamishmar, December 17, 1948. Shir kemigdalekh hagavoha was first collected in Sheva reshuyot and does appear as the opening poem to the section Shti hayagon veerev hasimha, but I have not been able to verify that this poem is indeed the petiha (opening poem) published in Al Hamishmar. The translations herein are done purposely in a rather literal style, so that the reader might refer more easily to the Hebrew and English texts.

6 The concept seems to have originated with Riffaterre. See his essay, Stylistic Context, in Essays on the Language of Literature, ed. Seymour Chatman and Samuel L. Levin (Boston, 1967), pp. 431–44. See also Menakhem Perry, Hamivne hasemanti shel shirei Bialik (Tel Aviv, 1977), pp. 42–51.

7 The term is Riffaterres. See Semiotics of Poetry

8 The motif itself is ironic, in that it is reminiscent of the famous High Holy Day liturgical poem Unetane tokef, in which God counts each individual for judgment as a shepherd counts the sheep in his flock.

9 In his review of Ratsiti likhtov siftei yeshenim, Boaz Arpali notes that the volume is filled with word combinations, phrases, sentences, lines and topics which contradict one another, balance one another, nullify one another, or evade one another. See Ledovev siftei yeshenim, Davar, December 24, 1971.

10 Uvekhen, tafasti et haparpar is one of a group of four poems which appeared as a prepublication selection from Ratsiti likhtov siftei yeshenim in Al Hamishmar, May 5, 1968. In the Ratsiti volume it appears on p. 89.

11 Original publication: Mo lad 28 nos., 25–26 (August–September 1972). In the Ayala volume it appears on p. 25.

12 The rabbinic discussion is found in Pesahim 22b.

13 In the talmudic literature, sid rote ah (boiling lime or mortar) is also associated with food taboos. In the Yerushalmi (Shabbat 3:3) the rabbis allowed the rolling of a raw egg on a roof of hot mortar on the Sabbath (to warm it before eating) but not the rolling of an egg on hot dirt. The same discussion is recorded in the Tosefta 2:22. (The Babylonian Talmud [Shabbat 39a] uses the phrase gag roteah, a boiling roof.)

14 Told to me and Stanley F. Chyet in a conversation at Gilboas home in December, 1982.

15 Particularly relevant here, in reference to Gilboas closings, are comments by Barbara Herrnstein Smith on the substantial force of closure and the sense of truth and un qualified assertion often brought in the closing lines of poems. See her Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End (Chicago, 1968), pp. 96–150 and 182–195.Google Scholar

16 The phrase is from Tamir–Ghez, Nomi, Binary Oppositions and Thematic Decoding, p. 238. See also the chapter Romanticism Revisited in Yael Feldmans study, Modernism and Cultural Transfer: Gabriel Preil and the Tradition of Jewish Literary Bilingualism (Cincinnati, 1986), pp. 73–88, and especially pp. 75–77, which contain several comments pertinent to Gilboas romantic free verse poetry.Google Scholar