Twisted! Uvi Poznansky Knocks Readers Over With Visions of...What's Not Seen...

And his wife said to him, Do you still hold to your integrity? Curse God and die! Job 2:9


A face has been given to her by many over the thousands of years that the story has been told, but...what was her name?
Don't take too long to try to remember, because she never was named! Job was certainly identified and even picked out by God to show that his faith was great! But what of his wife? Uvi Poznansky has created a collection of her shorter stories, Twisted, that will provide readers with a tale of horror for the woman who told Job to curse God... Whether or not it has any element of possible truth for this unnamed woman, it certainly points readers in a direction toward which they have never gone... Did she love Job? Feared for his life? Or was she concerned about financial support if her husband were to die? Or, perhaps, she may have been jealous of his devotion to God rather than to her and his family...  She forces each woman to consider--what would I have done???


Twisted

By Uni Poznansky

The cover of this book is so very intriguing that I find that I must begin right here. In her book she has a separate section on how her art is intertwined with her writing. This cover, to me, is a perfect example... She shares how she created it:

A few months ago, a pile of bones captured my fascination. Scattered across my desk, they were ashen, rather small, and of fanciful shapes. I was unable to identify the animals whose remains these were, nor could I name their skeletal parts. 

Which left me free to mine—out of these crumbling, fragile relics—an entirely new presence. Coming to life on brown paper with a few stokes of white, red, and brown pencils, there she was: my Bone Princess.

Set upon a patch of scorching desert sand, she casts a one-eyed look at you, which masks how vulnerable she really is. Her soft flesh is shielded— and in places, nearly crushed—by her armor of bones. She is damaged: no arms, no legs, yet she accepts her pain with pride, and with regal grace. Inside and out she carries a sense of morbidity.

As all creations, she became an independent spirit. As such she made me wonder what had happened to her. I imagined her turning to me, curving the elegant, elongated lines of her neck, to tell me her story. This was how my novella, the first one in this collection— I Am What I Am— came to be. Twisted.

I must say that reading the back story on the cover blew me away! It is very clear that Uni creates from her whole being--works, creativity imagination, artistic skills... I was enthralled already as I began to read  "I Am What I Am" which tells the story of a woman who had no name by which people would remember her. 

The story begins as we find the woman without a name in a cave, afraid, wondering what was to happen to her. Did she even remember what her name was? But then she hears a discussion, really an argument. It's about her! When it grows silent again, she begins to crawl slowly out of her hiding place... She crawls until she begins to see what appears to be familiar. It looks like where she had lived--Uz--and she remembers the people and places from her life at that time...

She could hear cries, some mournful, but even then, they, too, slipped away. She had not been mourned very long... Even Job had spent little time, spouting His usual words:

 Job stayed with me awhile. Again and again he mumbled, in his inexplicable, pious manner, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I depart.” Men! Always thinking of themselves! 
All the while there I was, flat on my back, in need of some attention , and some clothes, too! 
Finally he left the gravesite.  I waited, waited until the sound of his footfalls had shuffled away— oh, how well I knew this tortured gait of his!— until it too was gone. 
All was quiet now, deadly quiet. You had to put your ear close to me to hear the one thing, the only thing that screwed up this silence: the crinkly sound of my hair and nails, continuing to grow, somehow.

~~~

Readers will discover what happens as Job's wife roams through... Hell...





"The Hollow" comes next as a woman faces the death of her husband and lives in the nightmare of that loss.... Sometimes, I imagine, she even wants to accompany him--she feels so greatly. Even considering to go through a doorway, she imagines that there is no floor beyond the opening...

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and

 finally decided to walk through the door. By now

 her eyes could barely stay open, and yet she knew

, without having to look closely, that it wasn't a

 door really— only the opening for one. And over 

that threshold down there, she could somehow read

 the shape of the shadow. How it appeared

 suddenly, spilling out of nowhere, was quite

 beyond her, but she could tell, couldn’t she,

 that there was no floor.

~~~

She had tried to forget--the memories, their love, their life together. But that morning, she had found her diary. Opened... How had that happened?
And Why?


"I, Woman" quickly tells you more about the story, when a sub-title is added-- As told by a has-been slab of clay! 

You know, one of my immediate reactions was that it was a perfect description for... ME Do we reach a point in life when we consider ourselves as a has-been. Certainly we do... but when, and how... I thought, was the issue, don't you think?

Would the story reflect something from the old hymn that came to my mind...

I stand here before you, not knowing my name. The light in this place is so blinding, so intense, that as far back as I can remember, it has forced me to close my eyes. Now this is about to change. Coming out of a brilliant haze, here is her footfall. Here she is: my Creator. I am clay in her hands.
Let her do with me as she pleases; for what am I to do? Now listen, listen to that sound: the air is vibrating around her. I can feel her breast, it is heaving . I can hear her breathing in, breathing out... Yes, she is coming closer. Is she about to blow life into me? My skin starts shivering. Here, now, is her touch— She puts a mark on me, pressing the sharp end of a chisel until it stings, it pierces me right here, under my eyelid. I shriek ! I cry— but somehow no one can hear me. If I were not reduced to tears, I would pay more attention to this nagging sense, the sense of astonishment in me. Why, why can’t I be heard ? Have I lost the ability to make a sound? Then I wonder, did I ever have it? And even in this crinkling, crushing silence, can’t she sense my pain?

~~~

Yes, it seems like my first inclination might be true...but then...the story, as predicted, becomes twisted... 

The last piece, Dust, is more that a story and can only be appreciated by sharing at least one of the sculptures behind the words...

From dust you gather me

I beg you on my knee 

Look away—imagine me, 

The way I used to be

Now shadows spread upon me

Stain by stain 

I shiver. Touch me, heal me

Make me whole again

~~~

I move through Poznansky's words... Does she write of agape love, philia, or eros in portraying such beauty... I arrive at only one word to describe her feelings about her work. It is Passionate! And I find there is no other word than I can use to describe my response to what she has presented to us in Twisted.

This is a book that drains your emotions... There will be confusion, pain, dread and fear, but there is also warmth, understanding, contemplation, and so much love... Uvi has spoken to me in this book. It is the first book of hers I've had a chance to read. From this one, however, I feel I have known her, the total Uvi Poznansky. Many will know her online for the kind, gentle, thankful person we've learn to care for... But, this, this, has shared her heart with me--with her readers. Could we think of these things she has twisted for us to consider if Uvi had not first considered them herself? 

It is obvious in her work that she wants to share with women, but, then, in I, Woman, she speaks to man like no other may have ever spoke... I am held captive, pondering over and over what she may have wanted her readers to find in her work... As opposed to what I have found there. I find it doesn't matter. Uvi has touched me.  I am grateful...

GABixlerReviews

Uvi Poznansky is a California-based author, poet and artist.
She earned her B. A. in Architecture and Town Planning from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. During her studies and in the years immediately following her graduation, she practiced with an innovative Architectural firm, taking a major part in the large-scale project, 'Home for the Soldier'; a controversial design that sparked fierce public debate.
At the age of 25 Uvi moved to Troy, N.Y. with her husband and two children. Before long, she received a Fellowship grant and a Teaching Assistantship from the Architecture department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she guided teams in a variety of design projects; and where she earned her M.A. in Architecture. Then, taking a sharp turn in her education, she earned her M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
During the years she spent in advancing her career--first as an architect, and later as a software engineer, software team leader, software manager and a software consultant (with an emphasis on user interface for medical instruments devices)--she wrote and painted constantly, and exhibited in Israel and California. In addition, she taught art appreciation classes. Her versatile body of work can be seen online at uviart.com. It includes bronze and ceramic sculptures, oil and watercolor paintings, charcoal, pen and pencil drawings, and mixed media.
Uvi published two children books, Jess and Wiggle and Now I Am Paper. For each one of these books, she created an animation video (see Author Videos at the bottom of this page.) She won great acclaim for her novel, Apart From Love, and for her poetry book, Home (in tribute to her father. Her collection of dark tales, Twisted, and her Historical Fiction book, A Favorite Son, are both new age, biblically inspired books. Rise to Power (volume I) and A Peek at Bathsheba (volume II) of her trilogy The David Chronicles have just been published.

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