RAFI'S LITERARY RESUME

Photo: Ruth Kaplan

Rafi Aaron’s new book of prose poetry entitled, In the Days of the Cotton Wind and the Sparrow, was published by Exile Editions (see Poetry) in 2017. His collection of poems, Surviving the Censor—The Unspoken Words of Osip Mandelstam (Seraphim Editions, 2006) received the Jewish Book Award for poetry in 2007 and was on A.F. Moritz’s reading list for the course New Canadian Writers at the University of Toronto.

Rafi’s book of poetry, A Seed In The Pocket Of Their Blood, was acquired by Syracuse University Press in 2000. The book was launched in the United States with a reading at the Canadian Consulate in New York City, with additional readings in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Rafi has received grants and scholarships from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council (OAC), The Banff Centre for the Arts (Leighton Studio Residency), The Tel Aviv Foundation, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada, and was a visiting writer at the Artist House in Israel. He has served as a literary judge for the OAC, The University of Toronto, and The League of Canadian Poets.

Rafi’s poetry has been published in ARC, EVENT, ELQ/The Literary Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, Grain, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Parchment, Prism International, Stand Magazine in the United Kingdom, Vallum, and The Jerusalem Post. The Fall 2013 edition of The New Quarterly contains an exposé on Rafi’s writing and features his poetry.

In October 2004 Rafi delivered the Alexander Mackenzie Memorial Lecture at the University of St. Petersburg, Russia, where he read his poems on Mandelshtam publicly for the first time. Rafi has created a play based on his book, entitled Mandelstam (see The Play), which won awards in the Toronto Fringe Festival’s New Play Writing Competition in both 2007 and 2008.

Rafi is the curator and poet for the traveling exhibit, A Seed In The Pocket Of Their Blood, which has been widely viewed in Canada, with showings in the United States and Israel. The exhibit combines poetry and photography into one artistic unit and features the work of legendary Time Magazine photographer David Rubinger; Jim Hollander, the former Chief Photographer for Reuters in the Middle East; renowned Montreal photographer Serge Clément, and acclaimed Toronto portrait photographer, Ruth Kaplan.

The New Quarterly nominated three of Rafi’s poems for the 2013 National Magazine Awards. In 2011 he was a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Competition and his poem, “They Escaped in the Night” was published in The Global Poetry Anthology. Tim Lilburn selected Rafi’s prose poem “Voronezh” as a winning entry in Grain’s 2003 writing competition. Rafi’s poems were short listed for the 2002 National Magazine Awards, and on two occasions for the CBC Literary Awards.  

A documentary on Rafi’s poetic works entitled The Sound Traveller, produced by Endless Films, has aired on Bravo TV and Book Television. Rafi’s poetry has been featured in the Globe and Mail, and on CBC Radio, Vision TV, Bravo TV, and TVO. The Toronto Star has described Rafi as a poet “who allows simple, fresh, vivid words to cut individual jewels out of the material of language.”