A heartfelt and captivating evening unfolded as a room full of attendees gathered to experience the poetry of Jagna Boraks (Lillian Boraks-Nemetz), a distinguished author and a dedicated board member of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada.
Lillian shared selected works from her latest poetry collection, Hidden Vision: Poems of Transformation, which explores themes of resilience, identity, and healing. Her readings, delivered with passion and authenticity, resonated deeply with the audience, leaving a profound emotional impact.
The event was a collaboration between the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the JCC Jewish Book Festival.
On the back cover of the book we read:
Hidden Vision is Jagna Boraks’s latest poetic tour de force, an exploration of the most horrid parts of the world we inhabit to the most sublime, from the pits of horror and the edges of despair, to, ultimately, hopes of the grand heights humanity can achieve.
“Poems for Hidden Vision walk us through ‘the shadow of death’ to an understanding of ‘goodness and mercy’. Jagna Boraks’s words invite the reader into the sacred ceremony of life.” – Patricia June Vickers, Indigenous psychotherapist, artist and author of Singing to the Darkness
“What I find fascinating about these poems is the person who responds to the present world, its worries and wonders, its beauty and horrors of its historical record. A fine collection of fine poems. Her poems are not post-romantic, like everyone else’s, hut complexly romantic.” – John Robert Colombo
“Fearless, keenly observant, rigorously truthful, with angry storms and heartfelt love and compassion, her poetic voice, and her hard-found, hard-fought vision of human life brings to us a unique perspective on our ancient barbarism which, after the Holocaust, she reveals, can only be healed through recognition of our higher selves – our delicately innocent creative capacity for beauty, truth, love, and wisdom.” – Paul Alexander, composer