SELECT ART & POETRY

Recent Publications:

* Two poems by Stav were published in Ho! Literary Magazine, vol. 29 "Myths" (Autumn 2025)​
* A poem by Stav was published in the poetry journal Helicon Poetry, vol. 146 "Until Zero Light" (Summer 2025)​
* Artwork by Stav was published in AJS Perspectives: The Magazine of the Association for Jewish Studies, Summer 2025: The Rainbow Issue.
​* A poem by Stav was published in the poetry journal Salon des Refusés, issue: "Secret" (Summer 2025)

Upcoming:

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​* TBA

To inquire about artwork prices to commission poems, contact Stav here.

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"Shmita" (2025): Porcelain, wood, mirror, acrylic

​Self-Portrait of a UK Immigrant in Lockdown on Election Day in Her Homeland (2021)
(Winner: 3rd Place, Long-Distance Poetry Competition)

She hadn't sleep all night because her fallopian tubes are assholes
She cried all morning because she misses her grandma
Who is just as depressed as her today, so she said on the phone
​
And she's feeling guilty because she is so very far away
And because today is the 4th National Election in the span of two years
And once again she's not there to do her part for her country

Her country, which she still calls home despite everything
The first time she came across a dreidel in the diaspora
She laughed — there must be a mistake

It’s supposed to say “A Great Miracle Happened Here”!
She laughed at the goyim, fools, they probably used Google Translate
And manufactured an entire line of faulty dreidels

And then she understood that she’s the fool here
“A Great Miracle Happened There”, because she’s no longer
Here she purchased the most British cardigan ever

An oversized cable knit brown cardigan, with deep pockets
And wooden buttons. She will go on a walk
That’s what the Brits do here
 
Later, in the kitchen, sipping on a cup of English tea
She makes tahini in the food processor
Adding water, lemon, and fresh garlic
​
Searching for the perfect balance
Between solid and liquid, sour and savoury,
Between here and there.

"Uprooted" (2021)

"Uprooted" (2021)

Judges' Commentary:
"A convincing, existential poem about the experience of distance as it echoes in a woman living in diaspora - both here and there, neither here nor there. Like the dreidel experiencing confusion in diaspora, not sure if it is here or there, distance is embodied in every circle: 
The physical circle - a physical pain in a foreign space; the family circle - missing her grandma to tears; and the national circle - the feeling of guilt, amplified on the day of elections.
​The poem remains life-sized and does not presume to offer magic solutions nor big conclusions beyond seeking balance between doing 'what the Brits do here' and a sensory insistence to find home by making 'tahini in the food processor.'"

"Home is Where" (2025): Collage

"Medusa's Scream" (2025): Needle felting, beads, ribbon

Medusa (2022)

I cannot recall
When I first felt their gaze
Treasuring me, measuring me
Like a prize to be won
Their gaze roaming my body
Assessing every inch
From my hair
Down to my feet
Their eyes are sand paper, scraping
Filing me down
Making me small.

Distressed, bereft, I turned
to Athena, I begged her:
Goddess of wisdom
Advise me, comfort me --
And it was there Poseidon found me.

He grabbed the waves of my hair
As if grabbing his horses' reigns
Bringing foam to my lips
Grunting in my ears
Of my sea-blue eyes.

Later she found me
Unconscious on her altar
My blood defiling her temple
And they say that in her divine,
Omnipotent wrath, she punished me

So they say
Those ignorant fools
Not understanding
Their male gaze blind
To justice served by a woman

All who look upon me will turn into stone
And ever since, nobody looks upon me

Not even Poseidon
Although the waves lap
At my bare feet, and the salt
Scraping my skin
Softens and smoothes me
Like an eel

I walk on the shore
Looking out at the eye-blue sea
My snakes twisting around me
Free to walk as I please
Head held high

Nina (2025)

Goddam, you fucked up
Nina Simone for me
This intoxicating shaman
Whose deep, honey-dripping
Bristles leave me goosebumped
Without fail.
You took that away from me.

I hold on to my fractured heart,
Its cracks I try to fill
With the thick, heady sweetness
Of lilac-wine memories
Yet the bitterness
In her voice, in our past
Lingers on my tongue
Like a stubborn, sustained
End note.

You never knew what it’s like
To love somebody the way
She sings, and Goddam --
You fucked up Nina Simone.
You fucked up us.
And I will never
Forgive you that.

"Floating", a trinket dish and decorative stones (2025): Clay, acrylic paint

"Over the Surface of the Deep" (2025): Diorama

"Strange Beauty" (2022): Live Art / Performance Installation, part of "We Are Invisible We Are Visible", The Arnolfini Bristol

Star Limbs (2019)
"There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in" - Leonard Cohen

I guess I should start with your hands. 
Boney, skinny fingers,
Nails stained from smoking. 
No one rolled a cigarette as fast as you. 

Then I would add your arms. 
Strong, comforting, how they lifted my little body
Up-up-up, my milky skin against your dark self. 
Mom said we looked like a Benetton ad. 

Next your mouth: thick lips, revealing 
Perfect white teeth. And your eyes.
Big, mischievous chocolate eyes, how they sparkled
When we swam in the waterfall, wading like puppies, worry free.

Then the eyebrows. The way they wrinkled 
When we played chess, I thought you were planning
Your next strategic move. But now I think you planned
How to trick me into winning. 

I add your legs. Those long, long legs
That danced in that one-room you called an apartment
You put Bjork in the CD player 
Because she looked like your girlfriend 
And you slowly moved to her guttural sounds. 

I collect you from photographs. 
I collect you from memory. 
You roll a cigarette, you play chess,
You dance with me, you jump from the waterfall,
            You jump off the window --
Your pieces are scattered but I collect you. 

I collect you as you were, tall and dark and young.
I collect you but I cannot put you together. 
Because I am older now than you will ever be --
How can I be older than you will ever be? 
​
So I scatter you
Piece by piece, memory by memory 
And I watch you dot the night sky. 
Each meteor the spark in your eye, 
Each limb - a constellation. 

You see, stars (like people) die.
But we still receive the light 
From stars that have long passed from this world.
When we look up at the skies
We are bathed in the light of stars
That died long, long ago.
I scatter you among them. 

I choose to believe that you, too, 
Like the stars, can send me
Messages coded in starlight
Long after you have passed from this world.
You cut through the fabric of the universe, 
You make cracks in the milky way, 
You open up a hatch in the solar system,
Through which your light shines
And collects in me.