Yvonne Green

Life and career

Green, who lives in Hendon and Herzliya, was born in Finchley, London on 8 April 1957. She attended the Henrietta Barnett School and then went on to read law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Green was called to the Bar in New York and England and first practiced in New York at Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy and the Legal Aid Society and later in London in the Inner Temple but retired as a commercial barrister in 1999 so she could publish the poetry that she had always written. Her first pamphlet, Boukhara, was published in 2007 and won The Poetry Business 2007 Book & Pamphlet Competition. Her first full-length collection, The Assay was published in 2010 and as a result of an award from Celia Atkin and Lord Gavron was translated into Hebrew in 2013, under the title HaNisuyi and published in Israel by Am Oved. Honoured, her most recent work has "telling detail and great emotional power" according to Alan Brownjohn. In Honoured, Green juxtaposes the idealised vision of Israel with the Zionist narrative of the diaspora. Green was Poet-in-Residence to Spiro's Ark from 2000-2003, Norwood Ravenswood in 2006, Casa Shalom from 2007-8, Jewish Woman's Aid from 2007-9 and since 2013, to Baroness Scotland of Asthall's Global Foundation To End Domestic Violence (EDV GF). After the November 2015 Paris attacks Green read translations from Hebrew as well as some of her own work at a Poetry and Music of the Middle East event in St Albans. On 6 June 2016 Green's poem, "The Farhud: Baghdad's Shabu'ot 1st and 2nd June 1941", was read in the Israeli Knesset to commemorate the Farhud. On 3rd July 2017 Green read out Bejan Matur's poems at “The Kurdish Sisterhood” event organised by the Exiled Lit Cafe at the Poetry Café. She currently convenes two monthly groups, one at Hendon Library called "Wall of Words" and the second at JW3, Europe's largest Jewish cultural centre, called "Taking the Temperature". She also regularly gives readings and talks on translating Semyon Lipkin.

Awards and honours

Poetry collections

From Russian

From Punjabi

Pamphlets and limited editions

Published periodicals

Translated publications

Three of her poems were published in translation in the Summer 2006 edition of Dimui (Beit Moreshet B'Yerushalayim), Out of the Ordinary, Bibi and Souriya.
A grant from Celia Atkin and Lord Gavron enabled Green's "The Assay" to be translated into Hebrew. They were then published in Israel by Am Oved under the title HaNisuyi (הניסוי) ISBN 978-965-13-2356-0

A conversation with Louise Glück

Louise Glück gave a rare interview to Green which was published in PN Review 196 in December 2010.

Reviews

Green has reviewed the works of other poets. She has reviewed Daniel Weissbort in the April/May 2007 edition of the London Magazine.

Gaza reporting

In 2008 Green wrote "Reflections on a Visit to Shderot" that appeared on the Freedom In A Puritan Age website. Five days after Operation Cast Lead, Green entered the Gaza Strip to see the situation for herself after hearing the media reports throughout the war. She then wrote a number of pieces from her experience. She wrote a report entitled "A Verbatim Note On a Visit to Gaza". Green also wrote an op-ed article entitled "Puzzled in Gaza" that featured in The Jerusalem Post and the Boston Globe where she stated, “What I saw was that there had been precision attacks made on all of Hamas's infrastructure…most of Gaza…was visibly intact.” Green also had was also interviewed by The Jewish Chronicle and Bridges for Peace about her experiences.

Radio features

Readings and events