Official Canadian Poetry Association Lit-serv

Sent:Saturday, March 31, 20077:17 PM

Subject: Fw: CYCLAMENS AND SWORDS – a new book of poetry by Helen Bar-Lev and Johnmichael Simon

Helen Bar-Lev an Johnmichael Simon are pleased to announce the arrival of their new book of Poetry entitled CYCLAMENS AND SWORDS and other poems about the Land of Israel. The book is fully illustrated with watercolour paintings and sketches by Helen.

You can now purchase your copy directly from the authors at the introductory price of:

§   65 NIS (including postage to Israel )

§   US $18 (including postage to USA or Canada )

§   €14 Euro   (including postage to Europe or Australia )

§   £10 Sterling (including postage to the UK )

Please send your order by email to:

hbarlev@netvision.net.il

OR

j_simon@netvision.net.il

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See what the critics are saying about CYCLAMENS AND SWORDS:

The achingly beautiful cover of timeless trees, earth, flowers and rock, is redolent of Israel ’s destiny.  This little land, so hallowed in human history, seems the literary and spiritual core of existence to most of humanity. If strife is ever present here, how can there ever be the peace of ancient promise?  This land seems to symbolize the eternal quest for harmony where forces of turmoil march ceaselessly.  Bar-Lev and Simon explore this theme for us.

Cyclamens and Swords will become a treasured classic, echoing as it does so fluently, the longing, fearing and questing that marks these troubled times. Helen Bar-Lev’s poem Beauty sums up the reader’s feelings as we reluctantly finish this special book: “and I,/the ingrate,/ever insatiable,/implore you,/please,/ show/ me/more.” 

Katherine L. Gordon

Author, Editor, Publisher, Judge and Reviewer,

Resident Columnist for Ancient Heart Magazine.

Bar-Lev and Simon open the reader’s eyes and hearts to Israel as a land of dazzling, sometimes tragic juxtapositions. The timeless tranquility of Bar-Lev’s unpopulated landscape paintings gains poignancy alongside poems that show an equally ancient violence alwayslooming on the border. This elegantly designed book shines with love and gratitude for the small miracles of natural beauty and human kindness that flourish even in a war zone.

Jendi Reiter, editor of Poetry Contest Insider published by

www. WinningWriters.com and author of “A Talent for Sadness”.

Recipient of numerous prestigious poetry awards.

There is a point where art transcends our daily lives and past experiences to touch deep the old stories from where all of humanity arose.  In this volume Helen Bar-Lev and Johnmichael Simon have drunk deep from the wellhead of this locus to combine poetry and visual art into a Jungian statement that illustrates how, when portrayed at its artistic essence, the story of one place becomes a story of us all.

Roger Humes, Director of The Other Voices International Project,

Author of “There Sings No Bird”.

Helen Bar-Lev and Johnmichael Simon bring the beauty of Israel to life in Helen’s lush watercolors and evocative monochrome paintings and in the sensitive poems they both write.  Their verbal and visual depictions of the breathtaking scenery, flowers, birds, fish, deer and ants, testify to Israel ’s magnificent natural environment.  But like an undertow in a dazzling ocean, the ongoing undercurrent of conflict tries to steal the serenity of the scenery.  Their book is simultaneously exhilarating and jarring. They reveal the beauty and the pain which live side by side in the compelling, complex reality that is Israel .  One shares their hope that serenity will triumph.

Rabbi Wayne Franklin, Providence , R.I.

CYCLAMENS AND SWORDS is a lush full color book of poetry and breathtaking illustrations of the Holy Land that will grace your bookshelf and delight you again and again for many years to come.