One of the reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Moving! September 14, 2012 By Dolores Ayotte
"Home" by Author Uvi Poznansky is a well-written compilation of poetry and prose. She shares some of the works of her father Zeev Kachel as well as her own talent.
This is the second book that I have read and reviewed by this gifted author. It is hard to put into words the emotion one feels after reading her work. There is a great sadness found here...almost sorrowful in its content. Her writing touches my heart to the core as I sense the courage it takes to show such deep feeling and pain. Yes...the release of pain is what I hear in her words. Her artistic gift is the expression of Ms. Poznansky's experiences. Perhaps, she is vicariously living and writing through the eyes of her father and touching our lives with her unmistakeable ability to share her feelings as well as her dearly departed father's innermost self with her readers.
Ms. Poznansky does not shy away from dealing with some darker subjects nor does her father. It is apparent to me that Zeev Kachel, the author of many of the numerous poems included in "Home", suffered a great deal. His poetry shows the depth of his loneliness in his later years and the therapeutic outlet he embraced in his poetry. In doing so, he is able to release some of his pain as well as share his talent. It is obvious to me that father and daughter share a common artistic gift. Ms. Poznansky is showing so much of both their talents in this thought-provoking and touching book.
"Home" is not for the faint of heart. It is meant to reach deep inside the reader's soul and stir those raw emotions that not all can...or want to, identify with. It appears to me that Zeev Kachel suffered a great deal throughout his life as he so poetically states "Now I cry out of a burst of pain and howl in darkness out of loneliness."
Yes indeed...Ms. Poznansky has captured not only the depths of her father's despair and turned it into a masterpiece, she has shared her prose and poetry as well. Once again, she has put her artistic talent out there for all to read and see. There are no "masks" as she shares her gifts with those keen enough to feel the true essence of her efforts. I wholeheartedly agree that, "Now after all these years, "Home" celebrates once again the spirit and the action - of joining forces". Father and daughter have done just that!
Books Description
Home. A simple word; a loaded one. You can say it in a whisper; you can say it in a cry. Expressed in the voices of father and daughter, you can hear a visceral longing for an ideal place, a place never to be found again.
Imagine the shock, imagine the sadness when a daughter discovers her father’s work, the poetry he had never shared with anyone during the last two decades of his life. Six years after that moment of discovery, which happened in her childhood home while mourning for his passing, Uvi Poznansky presents a tender tribute: a collection of poems and prose, half of which is written by her, and half—by her father, the author, poet and artist Zeev Kachel. She has been translating his poems for nearly a year, with careful attention to rhyme and rhythm, in an effort to remain faithful to the spirit of his words.
Zeev’s writing is always autobiographical in nature; you can view it as an ongoing diary of his life. Uvi’s writing is rarely so, especially when it comes to her prose. She is a storyteller who delights in conjuring up various figments of her imagination, and fleshing them out on paper. She sees herself chasing her characters with a pen, in an attempt to see the world from their point of view, and to capture their voices. But in some of her poems, she offers you a rare glimpse into her most guarded, intensely private moments, yearning for Home.
5.0 out of 5 stars From MainlyPiano March 28, 2012 By Kathy Parsons
"Apart From Love" is the debut novel by a true multi-media artist who is a writer, poet, painter, sculptor, architect, software engineer, and teacher. Uvi Poznansky was born in Israel and now makes her home in Southern California.
"Apart From Love" is a fascinating account of a series of events told from two different points of view. Ben is the estranged son of Lenny, an aspiring writer who has recently married a young woman close the same age as Ben. Anita, the new wife, is a diamond in the rough who has had a difficult life and is not particularly well-educated. Ben left the family when his parents divorced ten years before the story begins and receives a letter from his father imploring him to come home. Lenny is ill and in the hospital, and Ben comes home and meets his young step-mother for the first time. The attraction between them is strong and troubling, but they try to hide those feelings from Lenny.
Lenny's story is told from Ben's and Anita's interpretations. Both have been encouraged by Lenny to tape-record their thoughts, and neither of them realizes until later that Lenny is capturing those thoughts for a book he is writing. He has a huge collection of tapes dating back to Ben's childhood, and each chapter of the book is supposed to come from those tapes. Ben and Anita record some of their most intimate thoughts, not realizing until it's too late that Lenny is listening to them and putting them into writing. Is Lenny really writing a novel culled from the lives of his son and new wife or is he manipulating events so that life imitates art? That is never really clear, nor is Lenny's rationale for hiding the fact that his ex-wife, a piano teacher and concert pianist (and Ben's beloved mother), has been institutionalized with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Once you get to know these characters, they become compelling. There is an air of mystery about the book that runs from the beginning to the final pages, but that also draws the reader in and makes the book difficult to put down. I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Apart From Love" and recommend it.
Written with passionate conviction, this story is being told by two of its characters: Ben, a twenty-seven years old student, and Anita, a plain-spoken, spunky, uneducated redhead, freshly married to Lenny, his aging father. Behind his back, Ben and Anita find themselves increasingly drawn to each other. They take turns using an old tape recorder to express their most intimate thoughts, not realizing at first that their voices are being captured by him.
Meanwhile, Lenny is trying to keep a secret from both of them: his ex-wife, Ben’s mother, a talented pianist, has been stricken with an early-onset alzheimer. Taking care of her gradually weighs him down.
What emerges in these characters is a struggle, a desperate, daring struggle to find a path out of conflicts, out of isolation, from guilt to forgiveness.
The title Apart From Love comes from a phrase used three times in the story:
After a while I whispered, like, “Just say something to me. Anything.” And I thought, Any other word apart from Love, ‘cause that word is diluted, and no one knows what it really means, anyway.
Anita to Lenny, in Apart From Love
Why, why can’t you say nothing? Say any word—but that one, ‘cause you don’t really mean it. Nobody does. Say anything, apart from Love.
Anita to Ben, in The Entertainer
For my own sake I should have been much more careful. Now—even in her absence—I find myself in her hands, which feels strange to me. I am surrounded—and at the same time, isolated. I am alone. I am apart from Love.
Ben, in Nothing Surrendered
Imagine the shock, imagine the sadness when a daughter discovers her father’s work, the poetry he had never shared with anyone during the last two decades of his life. Six years after that moment of discovery, which happened in her childhood home while mourning for his passing, Uvi Poznansky presents a tender tribute: a collection of poems and prose, half of which is written by her, and half—by her father, the author, poet and artist Zeev Kachel. She has been translating his poems for nearly a year, with careful attention to rhyme and rhythm, in an effort to remain faithful to the spirit of his words.
Zeev’s writing is always autobiographical in nature; you can view it as an ongoing diary of his life. Uvi’s writing is rarely so, especially when it comes to her prose. She is a storyteller who delights in conjuring up various figments of her imagination, and fleshing them out on paper. She sees herself chasing her characters with a pen, in an attempt to see the world from their point of view, and to capture their voices. But in some of her poems, she offers you a rare glimpse into her most guarded, intensely private moments, yearning for Home.
The second book is "Apart From Love"
One of the reviews
"Apart From Love" is the debut novel by a true multi-media artist who is a writer, poet, painter, sculptor, architect, software engineer, and teacher. Uvi Poznansky was born in Israel and now makes her home in Southern California.
"Apart From Love" is a fascinating account of a series of events told from two different points of view. Ben is the estranged son of Lenny, an aspiring writer who has recently married a young woman close the same age as Ben. Anita, the new wife, is a diamond in the rough who has had a difficult life and is not particularly well-educated. Ben left the family when his parents divorced ten years before the story begins and receives a letter from his father imploring him to come home. Lenny is ill and in the hospital, and Ben comes home and meets his young step-mother for the first time. The attraction between them is strong and troubling, but they try to hide those feelings from Lenny.
Lenny's story is told from Ben's and Anita's interpretations. Both have been encouraged by Lenny to tape-record their thoughts, and neither of them realizes until later that Lenny is capturing those thoughts for a book he is writing. He has a huge collection of tapes dating back to Ben's childhood, and each chapter of the book is supposed to come from those tapes. Ben and Anita record some of their most intimate thoughts, not realizing until it's too late that Lenny is listening to them and putting them into writing. Is Lenny really writing a novel culled from the lives of his son and new wife or is he manipulating events so that life imitates art? That is never really clear, nor is Lenny's rationale for hiding the fact that his ex-wife, a piano teacher and concert pianist (and Ben's beloved mother), has been institutionalized with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Once you get to know these characters, they become compelling. There is an air of mystery about the book that runs from the beginning to the final pages, but that also draws the reader in and makes the book difficult to put down. I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Apart From Love" and recommend it.
Books Description:
Meanwhile, Lenny is trying to keep a secret from both of them: his ex-wife, Ben’s mother, a talented pianist, has been stricken with an early-onset alzheimer. Taking care of her gradually weighs him down.
What emerges in these characters is a struggle, a desperate, daring struggle to find a path out of conflicts, out of isolation, from guilt to forgiveness.
The title Apart From Love comes from a phrase used three times in the story:
After a while I whispered, like, “Just say something to me. Anything.” And I thought, Any other word apart from Love, ‘cause that word is diluted, and no one knows what it really means, anyway.
Anita to Lenny, in Apart From Love
Why, why can’t you say nothing? Say any word—but that one, ‘cause you don’t really mean it. Nobody does. Say anything, apart from Love.
Anita to Ben, in The Entertainer
For my own sake I should have been much more careful. Now—even in her absence—I find myself in her hands, which feels strange to me. I am surrounded—and at the same time, isolated. I am alone. I am apart from Love.
Ben, in Nothing Surrendered
Thank you so much Brian!
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