October
Reviews of October
October exposes and explores the essence of evil, an evil that ripped apart the fabric of lives, leaving life itself raw and unravelling. October renders events through a prism of emotions that will grip you by the throat with words that manage to stitch experiences of terror into an imagined future, however
tentative, of hope.
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Janis Rapoport, author of After Paradise
In her poignant new collection, Eva Eliav pulls us into her “silent commotion” of fear, anger, and grief
from the very first line, as her “eyes rest on the photos / of the dead”. Beginning on a quiet October 7 the morning, when “no one imagined / what the hours / would bring”, these poems are exquisite and
candid snapshots of Eva Eliav´s daily reflections after the massacre. How can she tend to “errands/
obligations” while “missiles fall”, “rockets burst overhead”, “our children are dismembered and devoured”? Despite everything, there are “rainbow stream[s] of grace”—a stranger who tells her not to be afraid, neighbours who “comfort one another/a blur of heartbeats,” “jars of hope/a sweet and bitter honey”. October is a stark reminder that it is we, the living, who must endure in order to honour the dead in memory.
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Julie Weiss, author of Rooming with Elephants
In her poetry collection, October, Eva Eliav gathers fragments of tenderness and terror, holding them
side by side. Birds still preen as missiles fall, neighbors whisper comfort as walls tremble. With spare,
luminous lines, she traces how tenderness persists even in the darkest hours. These poems bear witness to war, and to the fragile beauty that survives it.​
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Eva Grobglas, author of Faces: October Portraits