Last Call

Eve Rifkah, poet, discusses her newest book

Veer Mudambi

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Eve Rifkah, poet and recipient of the 2021 Kunitz award from the Worcester County Poetry Association, is a longtime Worcester resident. She worked with the Telegram & Gazette for 17 years and has taught writing and English composition college courses at Fitchburg State University, Worcester State University, WPI and Clark University.

Rifkah was co-founder of the nonprofit organization Poetry Oasis (1998-2012), which focused on education and promoting local poets, and was founder-editor of the literary journal Diner, which ran for seven years. She is the author of "Dear Suzanne" (2010) and "Outcasts: The Penikese Leper Hospital 1905-1921" (2010).

Her newest book, "Lost in Sight," will be available in stores this month.

Tell me a little about this new book and what went into it?

My previous books are historical poetry — one about a leper colony, the art of Suzanne Valadon and another about the life of an aunt of mine. So all of the poems in those books were written specifically for those books, but I write other poems. Last year, back in January of 2020, I had put together a manuscript I’m still hoping to get published — a memoir of my childhood — so I got that together and began sending it out and was like "what do I work on now?" because I hadn’t been writing very much at all.

Well, I have all of these hundreds of hundreds of poems, many of them have been published in journals but not in a book. I certainly had time on my hands so I put them together and sent them out at the end of February, early March. I heard back a few days later that it was accepted. It’s the fastest acceptance I ever had.

Been working with Silver Bow back and forth and now I’m just waiting for the books to arrive at my door. They’re poems that have been written over the last 20-25 years.

When is the publishing date?

The printer sent them out on May 27 so now I’m just waiting for them to arrive. They’ll be available through me and local bookstores in another week or

Poet Eve Rifkah EVE RIFKAH

two.

Would you be able to mention a poem that you’re particularly excited about bringing to the public’s attention? That you’re most excited to share?

The book is in four sections, and the first is from when I was in the Azores, so that whole section comes out of my experiences there, although the first poem is actually a fantasy and that’s called "Song of Blue."

I really like anthropology and different customs and myths, how people live and the stories they make. So this poem is a story that comes out of a different culture than the one we know, that I created, to give these people a story. I like ritual, though I’m not a person who believes in anything in particular, I’m not religious at all, I’m an atheist but I like the concept of ritual because I think it ties people together in the community. This particular poem deals with a ritual that is important to the people in the town, where it’s very special to be able to go up to a blue heron and touch it, and that touch is special. Then everyone else in the group touches the person who touched the bird.

When and where was "Song of Blue" initially published?

It was published in the Blue River Review in fall 2020 but it was written about 10 years ago.

I’ve always been fascinated by poetry and the ability to make music with only words on paper.

Ray Bradbury said that all good writing is poetry, and that’s a man who did not write poetry and he was always one of my favorite writers. Writing was music and it had the sound of poetry, very lyrical, very beautiful. Whether you’re a fiction writer or a journalist, if you write well, it’s poetry.

What would you hope that readers take away from this newest book?

I hope readers are amused by some of them and some, I hope they are moved by and that they can see some of the beauty that I experienced.