The shortest poem in playwright, director and author Israel Horovitz’s new collection, Heaven and Other Poems (Three Rooms Press) is titled “A Dieter’s Prayer.” Here it is: “Bless you, Father, / For I have thinned.” This poetry collection should delight the lover of verse, and those averse to poetry. Horovitz writes accessible, earthy, and mainly short poems that charm and beguile. This volume comes on the heals of his acclaimed directorial debut, “My Old Lady,” starring Maggie Smith and Kevin Kline (9-12-14 AJW). And fans of the poet’s famous rapper son, Ad-Rock (a.k.a. Adam Horovitz), of the Beastie Boys, might want to see what the old man’s up to. — M.S.
About Israel Horovitz
Playwright-screenwriter-director Israel Horovitz’s seventy stage-plays have been translated and performed in as many as thirty languages, worldwide. His plays have introduced such actors as Al Pacino, John Cazale, Jill Clayburgh, Marsha Mason, Gerard Depardieu, and many others. Best-known plays include Line (now in its fortieth year, off-Broadway), The Indian Wants the Bronx, Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, My Old Lady, The Widow’s Blind Date, It’s Called the Sugar Plum, Rats, Morning, and The Primary English Class. Best-known films include Author! Author!, Sunshine (for which he won the European Academy Award–Best Screenplay), James Dean (which introduced James Franco), 3 Weeks After Paradise (which he wrote, directed and starred in), and My Old Lady, which he recently adapted for the screen, and directed, starring Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, and Kristin Scott-Thomas. Horovitz’s memoires Un New-Yorkais a Paris were recently published in France, where he was decorated as Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and is the most-produced American playwright in French theater history. Heaven and Other Poems is the first collection of his poetry he has authorized for publication.
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