More than 40 years ago, I discovered the stories and novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer (1903-1991). I don’t remember how I came across his work, but I found myself reading stories about a culture that had largely vanished, not long before I was born.
My understanding, if I had one of the Yiddish culture, had been shaped by a play that became a movie, Fiddler on the Roof, the story of Tevye, his wife Golda, and their daughters as they navigate the forces of modernism and anti-Semitism changing their lives. It’s set in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in Russia, around the turn of the 20th century. And then I read Singer’s stories, which not only provided a richer context than the movie but also made the culture seem more real. As much as I enjoyed the movie, it was Singer’s stories that showed the reality without the Hollywood framing.
As I started reading The Broken Heart is the Master Key: Poems by Baruch November, I was almost catapulted back to Singer’s stories. November’s poems aren’t about a culture that had almost disappeared; instead, they reflect the echoes of that culture, two generations after Nazi Germany destroyed it in Poland, eastern Europe, and western Russia.
Some Tuesday Readings
Doubly – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.
How to Write a Found Poem – The Many Tools to Discover Treasure – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.
“A Psalm of Life,” poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.
“In Time of Plague,” poem by Thomas Nash – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Due to the Loss of Field Roast Artisan Grain Sausage – poem by L.L. Barkat at Every Day Poems.
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