Harmless

Every year I keep waiting for Hollywood to create a new television series, maybe called Myra And Me. Instead of another hospital or police showù a program called Myra She Wrote. Ok, so I'm misunderstanding things. Read Myrs Sklarew's poem "Misreading" in the latest issue of Poet Lore and one will find a lesson in how the difference of one word can change how we interpret things or maybe not...I like her poems' wardrobe. I like what they wear and how they read and sound. I like their politics. Sometimes the darkness in Myra's poems reminds us to mourn; they else, teach us not to forget. The Jewish tenderness tells us never again if we dare to call ourselves human. This woman. This poet.ùE. Ethelbert Miller

Myra Sklarew's poetry is unique in having a dual faceùboth Jewish and Israeli. Not only Israeli landscapes, voices and people can be found in many poems, but they are imbued with an Israeli soul and their breathing has an Israeli rhythm. The poet seeks to trace the obvious in the realm of the hidden. She doesn't ask, "Who is a Jew." She knows to Identify "the shoes of a Jew," and "a hat of a Jew," and "a Jewish father's tears on the stony stair." But when she arrives at the messiah's world, she would like "the problem reconsidered." She writes, "I've begun to forget the meaning of words." After reading her poems I personally will find it extremely difficult to forget their Words and their Significance.ùL.Y. HaJerushalmi Davar Newspaper, Israel

This verbal artist's work is often perplexing, its challenges off-putting to the casual or important reader. But if we give these tiny jewel-like parables a chance, they will blow and blow and then burst upon us, illuminating the patterns of our inner lives.ùPhil Jason, Washington Jewish Week