I enjoyed reading the poetry of the Rabbis immensely. One aspect of the poems that I found interesting was the re-occurring themes across all of the poems and all the authors. One of these themes was the use of the analogy to a “fawn” or a “gazelle” to feminize male characters, and to extenuate female characters. Multiple poems speak of a fawn who they have affection for. There was other “deer” language used such as “stag” in poem #13 by Moss Ibn Ezra. The word “gazelle” was also used in similar fashion by feminizing how a man leapt and also to describe a female. This language brings forth imagery of something lanky, quick, strong but docile , and also in some ways innocent. Another interesting repetition in this strand across poems was the description of a person as “my dear.” This is interesting because when read aloud it can be interpreted as the affectionate term or as the animal name, which links back to the usage of the word “fawn.”

Another aspect I noticed was the juxtaposition of almost affection and violence. Multiple poems describe blood, killings, and death. Poem #19 describes “To ten lovely fingernails // painted with blood from my entrails.” There are also analogies in some of the poems of wine being blood, and of the wine coming from the physical person such as in poem #12 which states “he offered his lips and I drank of their wine.”

One final aspect I found interesting is the ambiguity of gender. All of these poems are written by male Rabbis and draw distinctions between male and female figures within the poems. However it is unclear of what perspective the narrator and voice is taking. Some poems describe the narrator taking something that is sexualized from a female, others from a man. The poems do not always seem to come from the voice of the Rabbi himself. Many of the poems also seem otherworldly and describe characters that almost seem demon like, or at least without moral due to the strand of violence and crimes of passion across many of the poems.