Udi Sharbani Explores Maternal Grief in New Award-Winning Poem
Israeli writer Udi Sharbani reflects on grief, memory, and maternal loss in his award-winning long poem "Shoshana Shoshana Shoshana," exploring the profound void left by his mother's death.
Israeli author and former soccer player Udi Sharbani has released his most deeply personal work to date, a long poem titled "Shoshana Shoshana Shoshana," which recently won the ACUM Award named after Nathan Yonatan. The book serves as a poignant elegy for his late mother, blending sacred scriptural imagery with modern vernacular, biting humor, and raw grief. The opening line—a variation on Dante's "Inferno"—sets the tone for a text that reads not only as a son's lament, but as a visceral protest against mortality itself.
A Journey Through Grief and Memory
Written initially during the traditional seven-day mourning period (shivah), the poem captures intimate and often agonizing moments: from his mother's cigarette-stained fingers to the desperate night he hammered on a police car window outside Ichilov Hospital, begging for a ride to reach her bedside as her condition deteriorated. Sharbani reflects on losing both parents, describing how the lifelong fear of this inevitable loss has finally materialized, leaving behind what he calls phantom limb pain of the soul and a profound sense of emptiness.
Universal Resonance and Literary Echoes
Critics have drawn comparisons to classic maternal elegies such as Allen Ginsberg's "Kaddish," Roland Barthes's "Mourning Diary," and Seamus Heaney's "Clearances." Sharbani weaves shifting grammatical numbers between the singular and plural, transforming his private trauma into a universal human condition caught between the desperate need for order and the chaotic reality of loss. Although two years have passed since his mother's death, Sharbani admits he has written no other poetry since, noting that the sorrow remains an enduring presence in his daily life.
