On the Slaughter

The first comprehensive English translation of a Russian-Jewish master's poetry, from the fiery poems he wrote in the wake of the pogroms of the early 20th century to his sublime lyrics about longing and self-reflection.
On the Slaughter, named for Bialik's most famous poem, also includes a sample of the poet's work for children and an impassioned introduction by the collection's translator, MacArthur winner Peter Cole.
Few poets in the history of Hebrew have possessed the power and prescience of Hayim Nahman Bialik. Born in 1873 in a small Ukrainian village, he spent his most productive years in Odessa and in his fifties made his way to British Mandatory Palestine. He died in Vienna in 1934.
Bialik’s body of work opened a path from the traditional Jewish world of Eastern Europe into a more expansive Jewish humanism. In a line that stretches back to the Bible and the Hebrew poetry of Muslim and Christian Spain, he stands out—in the words of Maxim Gorky—as “a modern Isaiah.” To this day he remains an iconic and shockingly relevant poet, essayist, and tutelary spirit.
Translated and introduced by MacArthur-winning poet Peter Cole, On the Slaughter presents Bialik for the first time in English as a masterful artist, someone far more politically and psychologically unsettling than his reputation as the national poet of the Jewish people might suggest. This compact collection offers readers a panoramic view of Bialik’s inner and outer landscapes: his visionary “poems of wrath” respond in startling fashion to the devastations of pogroms and a Jewish community in crisis, while his quietly sublime lyrics of longing, doubt, and withering self-assessment bring us into the silence at the heart of his art. The volume also includes a sampling of slyly sophisticated verse for children, and a moving introduction that bridges Bialik’s moment and our own.

Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934) is widely considered the greatest Hebrew literary figure of his age. Born in the Ukrainian village of Radi, he was orphaned at the age of seven and sent to live with his pious grandparents. At seventeen he left for the famous Volozhin Yeshiva in Lithuania and then for Odessa, where he emerged as the youngest of a remarkable group of Hebrew writers and intellectuals. He and his wife, Manya, made their home in Odessa for more than twenty years but were forced to flee the newly established Soviet Union in 1921 for Germany. In 1924, he set sail for British Mandatory Palestine. He died in Vienna.
Peter Cole’s most recent books include Draw Me After: Poems; That Simple?... and That Complicated: Conversations on Poetry and Translation; and Hymns & Qualms: New and Selected Poems and Translations. Among his collections of translations are The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950–1492 and The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition, as well as contemporary poetry and fiction by Aharon Shabtai, Taha Muhammad Ali, Yoel Hoffmann, Harold Schimmel, and others. Cole has received numerous honors for his work, among them an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, the PEN Translation Prize, fellowships from the NEA, the NEH, and the Guggenheim Foundation, a National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, and a MacArthur Fellowship.