"Clamor" by Raquel Partnoy

My grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Argentina in 1913, shortly before World War I. They decided to leave their country because of Czarist persecution and discrimination against the Jewish people, and also because of the Army, into which Jewish boys were drafted never to return to their homes.

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My parents were not able to pack many of their belongings when they left Russia, but they did bring a samovar, a mandolin and a sewing machine. In their new country they began to rebuild their lives, always preserving their traditions, language and cultural heritage. The samovar came to my home with all the family memories and I decided to preserve them in my paintings.

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When I painted the series “From Life,” “Life’s Windows,” and “The Brides,” I used all those old photos to portray the negative and positive aspects of life. From then on I could never separate life from art. My series “Life’s Experiences” is related to the dictatorship in Argentina when more than 30,000 people “disappeared.” Many youth who believed in justice were arrested, tortured and eventually killed by the authorities. In that series I tell of my own pain for the disappearance and later imprisonment of my daughter.

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After that I produced the series “Clothes.” By painting clothes without people I portrayed the life my only son, who suffered depression during those horrible years, until he could not bear it anymore and committed suicide.

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Between Two Skies

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In my city of red horizon that trap the winds

and shelter the wings of monsters,

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where a white salt marsh bars the land from bearing fruit,

and the tamarisk bush houses fear,

there are people who envision new skies to keep on living.

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In my city of windows blurred by the dust of indifference

and the gray complicity of silence,

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where streets have kept the indelible prints of the angel of death,

prints of genocidal boots,

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there are people who vanish from earth,

yet were never allowed to meet new skies.

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In my city of gloomy parks, where churches are siblings

to the killer crows, to terror,

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where outrageous spokespersons, poison the air

and break all dreams that sprout anew,

there are people who never chose to live under new skies.

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Portrait of My Mother

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A violet light falls over my mother’s face, or

it is she who radiates this light.

Her dilated pupils look into infinity, maybe at

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the life – the ghosts, she left behind.

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On the ochre wall of the kitchen, a blue shadow

emphasizes her Semitic profile,

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and her expressive features are framed by her white

hair – with a wave on her forehead.

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We all sit around the table, she is under the clock

whose tick - tock accompanies her voice.

She speaks in Spanish , although it is mixed with

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some Yiddish the children understand.

The story starts –and she is a good storyteller– when

she was a child in her Russian hometown.

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Her eyes smile, she remembers her life with her eight

siblings in the house near the river.

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The laughter of the girls when the brothers,

who under the water, caught their legs by surprise.

And, in the winters, their sliding on the frozen river,

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playing together, always sharing their happiness.

The family’s joy as they painted the walls,

and prepared special dishes for their Jewish celebrations.

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All those lively noises while making food

they stored in the basement for the cold seasons.

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But this colorful landscape darkens, she recalls when

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young boys were forcefully taken by the army

and never again they returned home.

Pogroms, houses in flames, death, Cossacks fiercely shouting:

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Jews go away ! Go away !

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My mother remains silent in the corner of my kitchen,

her words still floating in the air.

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* these are fragments of a larger narrative on her blog, City of Red Horizons

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Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Raquel Partnoy, Guest Blogger

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Raquel Partnoy is an Argentine painter, poet, and essayist who has lived in Washington, D.C. since1994. Her solo exhibits in this city include: Parish Gallery; B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum; Embassy of Argentina; D.C. Jewish Community Center; Studio Gallery. Her work has been featured in: Arte al Día-Documenta 87 - La Plástica Norteamericana; The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology; Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist Analysis; CALYX, a Journal of Art and Literature by Women US. Her essays have been published in Women Writing Resistance-Essays on Latin American and the Caribbean; The Jewish Diaspora in Latin American and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory. Her narrative poem City of Red Horizons will be published in Argentina in 2011. Please see more of her poetry at City of Red Horizons and her artwork at Pintores Argentinos. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor