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Page 12 American Book Review The Fate of Yiddish Poetry Miriam Leberstein I was somewhat confused when I opened this book at random and found not a Yiddish poem in translation, as its title promised, but an original poem in English by its translator/editor, Richard J. Fein. It turns out the book is a novel and intriguing hybrid that combines a selection ofYiddish poetry in bilingual presentation with a number of Fein’s own poems in English that he suggests may be viewed as “responsa” to the Yiddish poems. This combination not only makes some greatYiddish poetry accessible to English-speaking readers, it also illuminates the art of translation, as well as the creative process. “Who needs a poem— and in Yiddish no less?” Fein has published several volumes of poetry; translations of Yiddish poetry, including the collection Selected Poems of Yankev Glatshteyn (1987); and a memoir, The Dance of Leah: Discovering Yiddish in America (1986). A major theme in his writing is the transformative effect of his mid-life engagement with Yiddish language and culture, which impelled him to return to writing poetry, and has served as a source of inspiration over the last three decades. This book is intended, Fein says in the preface, to demonstrate the “ongoing powers of Yiddish poetry, how that poetry can be read for itself and how that poetry has helped an American poet to write his own poems.” Fein has chosen the poems for this anthology based on their impact on and appeal to him. While Fein does not aim to be comprehensive or representative , he nevertheless provides a wide-ranging sampling that demonstrates the scope and power of Yiddish poetry. Included are the major figures of twentieth-century Yiddish poetry, from America, the Soviet Union, and Israel, as well as some lesserknown poets. Seth Wolitz provides a thorough, scholarly introduction, discussing the poetry in historical context, and also supplies extensive, detailed biographical notes that resonate with a passionate appreciation for the subjects. There are many poems on such “Jewish” themes as nostalgia and anti-nostalgia for the shtetl, the immigrant experience, and reflections on the fate ofYiddish and theYiddish poet. But there are also poems about love, personal feelings, and aesthetic and sensual appreciation. Fein has sensibly avoided poems with linguistic particularities or religious and cultural references that resist successful translation. He generally replicates the form and style of the poem, but not rhyme or meter. In general, his translations—some close, some looser—are sensitive, careful, and imaginative renderings that very effectively convey the qualities of the Yiddish poems. Particularly lovely is Mani Leyb’s “A Plum,” a lyrical sonnet in which a man, after biting into a juicy plum, conveys it to his wife’s lips: Lovingly, she thanked him and gnawed the plum in his hands down to skin and pit and speckled pulp. Very different, but equally well rendered is Fein’s version of H. Leivick’s “ToAmerica,” a long, impassioned address by the poet to his adopted country , combining a paean to its gifts with a rebuke for failing to allow him to feel at home. Fein adeptly captures the powerful Whitmanesque rhythms, the colloquial energy of the language, and the irony and poignancy of its tone. why is it that up to now I haven’t sung to you in joy, in praise, in pure admiration, in accord with your spaciousness, your states, your byways, your prairies and your mountains and valleys, and, even more, my four small walls…. In most cases, Fein’s decision not to hew to the meter or rhyme of the original is a wise one, which avoids the greater evil of artificiality and awkwardness . But it doesn’t work in the case with Itzik Manger ’s retellings of biblical stories, reimagined in the setting of the East European shtetl. Here, the rhyme and meter in the original are intrinsic to the folksy, naïve tone of the poems, and too much is lost when the translation fails to replicate them. Fein’s own poems in English constitute nearly one-third of the volume. (He also includes a few poems of his inYiddish, under the pseudonym, RuvnYankev Fayn.) Except for...

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