"Still Hidden Because of the Clouds"

On Response and Resistance in Shimon's Adaf's Works

Abstract

This article focuses on poetic techniques and strategies of concealment in Shimon Adaf's first book of poetry, Icarus' Monologue. It identifies three techniques of concealment: a case where an early and seemingly forgotten poem is disguised in another poem; a discussion about the concept of writing not for publication purposes and the establishment of ״open secrets"; and forgetfulness as a professed practice. In addition, the article describes a strategy of repeated adjustments ("never in the wrong measure" as a poetic principle). These techniques of concealment entail an inherent resistance to anticipated responses and readings - readings that seek out the biographical and personal aspects in Adaf's poetry, searching in it for the coordinates of place, ethnicity and social status, as well as readings that draw on conventional and even automatic interpretative categories. In addition, readings conforming to these conventional categories form the very background against which the poems make use of these camouflage techniques. Therefore, these acts of concealment, by their mere existence, also highlight the existence and inner workings of conventional categories of reading. Finally, this article also demonstrates how the lyrical text performs profound acts of resistance and creation of space, and how Adaf's early poetry strives to enter into a new reading contract with its readership.