Verses

Each week, we select the most interesting Jewish obituary. Today, it’s that of New York City poet Samuel Menashe. Born in Brooklyn, educated at Queens College, and at home in downtown Manhattan, his specialty was short poems, typically under ten lines, and he published widely in Partisan Review and The New Yorker. He also frequently waxed on Jewish topics; his first book, 1971’s No Jerusalem But This, is centered around that aspect of his identity.

In 2006, Emily Botein visited his small house on Thompson Street in SoHo, where he lived for more than five decades, for WNYC: .

And the Poetry Foundation, which gave him its first-ever Neglected Masters Award in 2004, has a number of his poems on its Website. Here’s “Psalm”:

Let’s make believe
I am happy, I laugh
Black poison, all of me
Its bottleful,
Become sparkling water
My cup runneth over
I am your son
You are my daughter,
The only one

Samuel Menashe, New York Poet of Short Verse, Dies at 85 [NYT]