Years I Walked at Your Side: Selected Poems

Mordechai Geldman is one of the finest Hebrew poets living today. His poetry is profound and creative. His unique voice emerges as both contemplative and sensual, existential and erotic, religious and psychological; equally fascinating is his attempt to bridge the gap between a western outlook and eastern philosophical thinking.

Geldman is an intellectual poet who tends to the meditative-reflective, and is preoccupied with philosophical questions, but his poems are also characterized by a figurative vividness, enchanted scenery and humor. The various aspects of modern urban culture – the idolization of youth, culture heroes, the contemporary art world, the sights of Tel Aviv and the global cultural milieu – pervade many of his poems. He deals with the great existential questions: the link between the physical and the spiritual, the sublime versus lowly routine, the metaphysical and the pornographic. But his poems are not at all abstract. The conclusion arising from Geldman’s poetry is that excessive awareness and scientific knowledge are powerless to solve the anguish of existence. Against this, the poet sets unknowing, feeling, sexuality, mystery and artistic creativity.