Friday Finds for Writers
Writing-related resources, news, and reflections to read over the weekend. (more…)
Writing-related resources, news, and reflections to read over the weekend. (more…)
Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.
Shabbat shalom.
As I noted in a blog post last summer, in some ways, I’ve been drawn to a life–the writing-and-publishing life–for which I am temperamentally unsuited. And that’s because two of the things I have always found most challenging are these: rejection and waiting.
In an essay, I’ve explained how rejection has become much easier with time and experience. But as I mentioned in that post last summer, the patience project is still something more of a work-in-progress. It’s not merely a matter of waiting for the acceptance/rejection decisions. I’m also filled with anticipation (and, sometimes, anxiety) when I know that a new piece has found a home and–yes, after another wait–will be meeting readers. I’m aware that this is what my dad calls a “high-quality problem.” But that doesn’t necessarily make the waiting easier! Plus, in many cases, even while waiting for publication, I know that yet another wait lies ahead: a wait for the paycheck (which I’ll admit makes me appreciate the steady salary of my day job all the more).
Right now, I’m waiting for three accepted essays to be published and paid for (two memoir pieces, one op-ed). There’s also a book review waiting to make its appearance (part of the delay in this instance is due to a publisher delay in releasing the book in question). It’s possible that all four of these pieces will be out within the next month. But I’m not holding my breath!
Published by Holland Park Press, To Sing Away the Darkest Days: Poems Re-imagined from Yiddish Folksongs “is the culmination of a five-year project which saw Norbert Hirschhorn source more than one thousand Yiddish songs from several archives and from collections on the Internet, as well as from CDs.” I learned about this book through a post that the publisher contributed to the Jewish Book Carnival Goodreads group, and when I received an offer of a review copy, I accepted.
The book’s first half is devoted to Hirschhorn’s “re-imaginings” (his term) of the old Yiddish songs. Some source material is likely to be familiar to many readers: “Mayn Yidishe Mame” and “Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen,” for instance. But plenty of Hirschhorn’s inspiration comes from material that I hadn’t encountered before.
Beginning on page 57, the book’s focus turns to “Sources, transliterations, literal translations, [and] links to music.” Starting with the book’s first poem and proceeding anew to the last, the reader finds a transliteration of each song’s original Yiddish text, a literal translation into English, historical background and notes, and, where possible, links to audio or video. I’m still trying to decide if I might have preferred having all of this information directly follow each of the poems instead; the format selected requires a lot of flipping back and forth for the reader who wants edification as she goes along, poem by poem.
In any case, Hirschhorn has done something wonderful here, and I encourage readers interested in Yiddish language and literature (as well as in poetry itself) to investigate. I’ll even recommend a place to start: Hirschhorn’s publisher has created a page with links to some of the songs behind the poems. Go over there, and enjoy.
Monday brings the weekly batch of no-fee competitions/contests, paying submission calls, and jobs for those of us who write (especially those of us who write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction).