SHIRIM: A JEWISH POETRY JOURNAL

Reflections

In my youth, in the 1920's, I would have scorned appearing in a Jewish poetry magazine. It would have meant that I didn't have enough talent to be published anywhere else. The last thing I would have wanted was to be pigeon-holed as a Jewish writer. That was too parochial and, in addition, would have put the kiss of death on what I was trying to be, an American poet... or, more accurately, an international-style poet, since Pound and Eliot, the poets that mattered then, were showing strong French influence. Another deterring influence to Jewish subject matter was the strong secular, Marxist atmosphere of the period. I was caught up in that. So were my contemporaries.

As a consequence my literary self connected in only a weak, nebulous way with my Jewishness despite the fact that my step-mother kept a kosher house and my father was president of his shul. At heart, however, he was an agnostic...and a Socialist and had been chosen because the congregation admired his integrity and fairness. In the end, my parents' strong Hungarian identification and interests (they spoke Hungarian to each other and to me, and knew no Yiddish) affected me more than their Jewish ones, which they carried faithfully as an obligation. In any event, I was not having Jewish experiences, as such, which could move me to want to write about them, and I was not about to go looking for them out of a sense of obligation. As a result, only a small portion of my work is about anything Jewish, and when Rabbi Dworkin asked me for poems for a small collection in SHIRIM, I was afraid there would not be enough even for a small collection.

There's more than I thought, and I'm glad, for although my literary self still maintains its independence, my personal self has had a solid, unambivalent connection to my Jewishness.

Looking over what there is of mine in this collection, I see that I have been moved by the great lyrical passages in the Old Testament, by the medieval Sephardic poets, by the spiritual power of synagogue music, by the experience of anti-Semitism, and by Jewish humor. What is not there is Jewish mysticism. Alas, I was not aware of its existence until late in life. I regret that because there is in me a deep, mysterious affinity for the mystical and had I encountered it sooner, I would have responded from a part of my nature which has not been tapped.

Is there something Jewish in my overall work despite my usual independence from Jewish subject matter? I suppose so, since there is no way to escape one's identity, but I don't know. I may have a clue, however. In the 1930's a new movement appeared in poetry. Its members were called the Objectivists. What characterized them was their extraordinary clarity and objectivity, their conciseness, and the unwavering honesty of their subject matter. The leading members were four Jews: Louis Zukovsky, Charles Rezni-koff, George Oppen and I. We were all very different from one another. No one could mistake a poem by Reznikoff for one by Zukofsky, or one by Oppen for one by me. At the same time, our work was very different from the work of our non-Jewish contemporaries. One could tell an Objectivist poem not only by its greater clarity and objectivity and honesty but by some other qualities in the writing, and it is these that may be Jewish, not exclusively, but recognizably Jewish in its mix, a mix of utter seriousness and earnestness and a great candor and responsibility, and a great compassion. This mix seems to me to characterize modern Hebrew and Yiddish poetry, too.

Poems

Services

There was a man in the land of Uz. Who's that at my coattails? A pale cocksman. Hush! The rabbi walks in thought as in an ordained measure to the Ark and slowly opens its great doors. The congregation rises and faces the six torahs and the covenant, and all beyond. The Ark glows. Hear, O Israel! The rabbi stands before the light inside, alone, and prays. It is a modest prayer for the responsibilities of his office. The congregation is silent. I too pray: Let Leah my wife be recompensed for her sweet smile and our many years of companionship, and not stick me when she cuts my hair. And let her stay at my side at large gatherings. And let my son George and his wife Leanna and my daughter Barbara be close, and let their children, Jennifer, Julie and Joanna be my sheep and I their old shepherd. Let them remain as they are. And let not my white hair frighten me. The tiger leaps, the baboon cries, Pity, Pity. The rabbi prays. There was a man in the land of Uz. I, son of Leopold and Flora, also pray: I pray for meaning. I pray for the physical for my soul needs no suppliant. I pray for man. And may a special providence look out for those who feel deeply.

L'Chayim

I felt
the foetus stir
a foot
below my wife's
breast

and woke
the neighbors
with my shouting
(a day
for silly asses)

and greeted
my first-born:
"Listen, I am
your provider.
Let us get to know
each other."

Associations with a View from the House

What can be compared to the living eye? its East is flowering honeysuckle and its North dogwood bushes. What can be compared to light in which leaves darken after rain, fierce green? like Rousseau's jungle: any minute the tiger head will poke through the foliage peering at experience. Who is like man sitting in the cell of referents, whose eye has never seen a jungle, yet looks in? It is the great eye, source of security Praised be thou, as the Jews say, who have engraved clarity and delivered us to the mind where you must reign severe as quiddity of bone forever and ever without bias or mercy, without attrition or mystery.