Back to Back: Two Poets Under One Roof (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780985471538)

E. L. Freifeld was born April 15, 1941 in Manhattan, of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Galicia, Elazar spans two literary generations from the streets of New York to Tel Aviv. His poems and stories have appeared in numerous books, literary magazines, newspapers and anthologies throughout the world. Since first publishing in 1964, he has had 15 books published, including The Importance of Swimming, Television Analogs, Love Cycles, A Jew in the House of Harvard, Poet's Guide to the Holy Land, The World According to Animals and What Walks. A Jew in the House of Harvard was awarded first prize by the Israel Federation of Writers for the year 1987. Translated into 8 languages, including Hebrew, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Turkish and Hungarian, Elazar's readings and seminars include such venues as, The New School for Social Research, The Whitney Museum School of American Art, WBAI Radio, WNET TV/Channel 13, CBS TV/Video at The School of Visual Arts, and the American Embassy in Tel Aviv. During the Scud War in Israel, continuing a career begun in the U.S., Elazar wrote a weekly column for The Jerusalem Post and is now contributing editor of LeConte Publications, in Rome. When asked to comment on his own work, he says; 'Every poem and story I write is like the first poem or story I ever wrote'. Lois Michal Unger was born in New York City. She was an actress before becoming a poet and appeared in plays on and off Broadway including The Diary of Anne Frank, Things That Go Bump In The Nite and The Red Shoes. She got married and the family moved to Vermont in 1970, grew food and lived without electricity for five years. In 1982, she moved to Israel with her husband and three children and now lives in Tel Aviv. About writing in general and poetry in particular she has this to say. "As a child I wrote poetry and won a prize from Junior Scholastic Magazine. Then I became an actress. Then I got married. When we moved to Vermont, I began writing again. From the start I had my own way of putting things, my own voice. Sometimes I'm guided by Jack Kerouac's remark: 'First thought best thought.' My best poems write themselves and I'm just the vehicle."