Review by MTReader91 -- The Immigrant's Lament

[Alyssa Nugent Washburn]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Immigrant's Lament" by Mois benarroch.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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First published in 1994, The Immigrant’s Lament is his collection of poems describing Benarroch’s immigration and the art of living between two worlds, but never belonging. This collection is the English edition of Benarroch’s first book. His collection of fifty-three poems ranges from childish endeavors to traveling abroad to being a starving artist awaiting publication. Benarroch is one of the leading Israeli poets, his poetry is known internationally, being published in a dozen languages, including Urdu and Chinese. Benarroch has written ten books of poetry as well as five novels in the following languages Hebrew, English, and his mother tongue, Spanish.

I rate this 2 out of 4. This collection of poems is a 2.5 because it reads well, but the errors throughout pull the reader from the poems. Throughout the book, there is missing punctuations and minor misspellings (I believe due to translations and transliterations). Page 10 has the word “mellahh” and I don’t know what it means and I am unable to find a definition, but Google gives me people who have names or spellings similar to mellahh. Page 14 has a quote of “yeah, that’s true. I had an operation I took of the tail and now I don’t look Moroccan.” I read the quote as “. . .I took off the tail . . .”. Page 82 uses allot instead of a lot. The editing within the collection is about par with other Benarroch works.

The last book I read by Benarroch was good and I felt I could give Benarroch another chance to catch my attention. I enjoy poetry, which is another reason to try this collection although I didn’t feel close to any of the poems within this collection.

If a reader likes historical references about immigration, religion, or past experiences, they will probably like this collection of poems. Poetry as a genre, has a selective audience so almost anyone who enjoys poetry should give this collection a try.

I am finding some connections to other works by Benarroch. There are hints to at least one connection to The Expelled as well as Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected). Other than finding the connections to some of Benarroch’s other works, I didn’t like this collection of poems.

The table of contents pages are the last two pages of the book. The poems didn’t hold my attention due to the repetitiveness within many of the poems. There were a lot of editorial errors including misspellings, using the incorrect terms, and many spacing issues.

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The Immigrant's Lament
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