Lali was born in Georgia in 1964 and moved to Israel as a child. She studied Comparative World Literature, Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University, and Television and Radio Narration. She taught Hebrew in Bar-Ilan and Tel-Aviv Universities.

She is the author of five poetry collections. Lali’s poems have been published in Literary Journals and in the press, and in a video art project. Her works are published in the most popular periodicals in Israel and she has participated in many international literary fes- tivals. Her poems are translated into 12 languages. Famous Israeli critic Gabriel Moked called her the face of Tel Aviv erotic-city poetry. Lali refers to herself as a follower and successor of resistential poetry.

PAINT ME ABLAZE

paint me ablaze
like Rome
start from the head eyeballs mouth nose castle
hills via neck

harnessed
dusty roads
long hands fingers of books

waist stomach kingdom of sorrow all the king’s seats streams of the fields and valleys of love

my thighs and knees will slowly burn

for a sign of my future shame
paint
a birth mark
my calves that are trained to go stright ahead til the ankles

convents
feet
toes
the king’s army

like an air my name will burn
my meaning will be strewn from my ashes any sense from my tendons will be free