Unlike the previous poetry books of Shatrit, who was born in Morocco, in this thin book, "an ongoing epidemiology of a poet", there are almost no echoes of the Mizrahi struggle that Shatrit is one of his main themes.
In general, there is almost no political poetry in this book, which is identified with Shetrit from his research books and his previous books of poetry, including "Shirim in Ashdodite" (Andalus, 2003) and "Zaman Morocco" (Biymot Kedem, 2015).
The new book of poems, as its title suggests, is a kind of personal diary made up of fragments of events experienced by the poet during the days of the Corona epidemic.
Thus, many of the poems begin with the words "here" or "now", and describe the lonely, difficult and anxiety-provoking present of a poet over 60 years old, whose children are far from him, in the days of an epidemic that is raging around the world.
In the meantime, Sheetrit plays with the pattern known from Dan Pegis's poem "Written in Pencil in the Signed Caravan", and begins some of his poems with the same pattern that Pegis created for Direon Olam: "Here in this shipment".
So, for example, in the poems that open with the lines "Here in this enclosure" or "Here, between the walls, in this silence".
The loneliness of the poet, whose autobiographical character fills the book, is one of the main feelings that emerges from the poems.
The poet is alone in the days of Corona in a loneliness that leads him to speak to himself: "You are not alone, I declare to myself / and my voice echoes to me in the hollow headbox / now an ancient cave haunted by spirits".
He watches television, writes, misses his children and occasionally has occasional romantic relationships (with "Hannah the Beautiful", "Esther the Queen" and other women who are hinted at without a name or nickname).
In the midst of this, more dramatic situations from that time also arise, including hospitalization on the eve of Passover due to pancreatitis ("Not that the negation of the order was important in my eyes at this stage") and a trip to the USA to visit his children ("In Northern California, wrapped in a blanket with my children / and "Our prayer does not make sense to God")
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From the two poems a gloomy picture emerges, in which the technical telephone conversation becomes a one-sided outpouring of soul, a confession of a poet who tried to become a dialogue and have a real conversation with another person, and failed in doing so: "- Thank you, Lord, be healthy. / - This? / - Yes, this , thanks. / - Do you want to hear a song I wrote here? / - No, thanks. / - Very short. Please."
Even the basic dialogic dimension of this poem disappears in the long poem that closes the book, which, as mentioned, describes a telephone epidemiological investigation, and the poem records only Shetrit's side of the conversation: "[...] May I read you a poem? Did I say I'm a poet? Of course... I'm not relevant [...] Yes, yes... I continue. [...] Obviously, not relevant. Only facts and dates."
It is possible that it is precisely on this personal level that the political criticism so identified with Sheetrit is found - a man lives alone, in enforced solitude due to a global epidemic, and everyone around him is only interested in facts and dates and not in him and his mental state.
Worse than that - a poet, whose whole life revolves around personal exposure and deep verbal communication with a readership, is in forced isolation and cut off from everyone.
From the poetic diary emerges the image of a lonely poet, who is only looking for a listening ear and a person who will agree to listen to a poem.
Sami Shalom Shetrit / An ongoing epidemiology of a poet; Editor: Roy Hassan. Tangier, 49 p.
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