Transformations: Holocaust Poems in Dan Pagis' Gilgul

Only a small portion of the poems in Dan Pagis' collection, Gilgul, are set aside distinctly as Holocaust poems. Seven short poems, grouped together under the heading "Qiiron /:Iii tum," and the longer piece, "cA qefJot," refer with clarity to events of the so Ji'ih. Yet certain basic concerns-above all an attention to entrapment and flight, captivity and freedom-which are most readily understandable in the context of the Holocaust poems, surface all the same throughout Gilgul. Though these same elements take on genuinely new configurations in terms of thematic emphasis and in terms of compositional strategy (for instance, in the adoption of unusual poetic voices and in an unconventional handling of time), the poetry nonetheless returns frequently to similar ideas and problems, even to specific words, as expressions of a single, central set of preoccupations. This is not to suggest that these poems, given their imagination and variety, should be read reductively as either deliberately or clumsily obscure reference to Holocaust incidents per se. Rather, it means that those assumptions and outlooks which appear as puzzling, derealized aspects of many poems in the collection become comprehensible if seen in relation to the poet's treatment of the so Ji'ih. In this sense "Qi'iron /:li'itum" and "cAqefJot" may serve as a key to understanding the work as a whole. Biographically speaking, Pagis' internment in a concentration camp was a major formative experience of his youth; in Gilgul, likewise, the Holocaust seems to be the source of specific circumstances out of which come attitudes that develop into a general poetic vision and an overall view of mankind.