I

I,

"1

,

r

•

•
. I

11,
1'1 i

•
. 11

1..

1

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, December 24, 1982 51

'Daily Bread': A New Volume of Poetry for Young an _ d Old

"Daily Bread" is the title
of a collection of poems that
will both fascinate the
young reader and incite
memories of lifelong experi-
ences among the elderly.
In fact, these poems by
Marc Kaminsky, in the im-
pressive University of Il-
linois Press volume, are re-
miniscences of an immig-
rant and the impressions of

a lifetime of transforma-
"After five years of teach- the editor of 'All That Our
tions and memories re- - ing literature and creative Eyes Have Witnessed.' "
tained.
writing at Hunter College
"Daily Bread" has the
and storefront academics in added merit of being illus-
Harlem
and trated with excellently-
The immigrant as he set- East
tles down and lives his life Williamsburg, he began posed photographs of el-
under varying conditions, working for the Jewish derly in action by Leon Sup-
and the manner of achiev- Association for Services for raner.
ing the seniority is perhaps the Aged, where he directed A foreword to the volume
best expressed in the Jewish the West Side Senior Cen- by Dr. Robert N. Butler, di-
fashion of the poet's "Erev ter. rector of the National Insti-
Shabbos":
In 1978 he founded and tute on Aging of the Na-
became director of the tional Institutes of Health,
for Esther Schwartzman
Artists and Elders pays a deserving tribute to
Project, a writing pro- the poet.
On Sunday, when she visits him, she must come prepared. gram for old people run
As an added mark of
What will she bring?
by the Teachers and apprectiation of Poet
She will come alone, with only a daughter.
Writers Collaborative.
Kaminsky's creative ef-
There is no ceremony they know between them.
"He has published three forts in "Daily Bread," it
collections of poems, includ- is worth resorting to an-
She goes to the table where for fifty-five years
ing 'A New House' and 'A other quote. In his poem
they sliced an apple and drank a glass of tea
Table with People,' and is "Underground" he ex-
before going to bed. How can she tell her daughter
the author of 'What's Inside presses his feelings, pro-
what kind of man he became when company left
You It Shines Out Of You' testing the insults that
and for her alone he was a man of holidays.
— the pioneering book on had been hurled at Jews
There was no night when he did not take her
conducting poetry work- with the "Zhid" epithet in
into his arms and play with her, for hours,
shops with old people — and Eastern Europe:
before going to sleep. And people thought
they went to bed early because they were old.
Underground

She spreads the white tablecloth
to set this evening apart.
And tonight, she sets another place at the table.
It is all prepared, as she prepared it for him
when he came home from work, after a week of
hauling egg crates and candling eggs.
He had strong arms and delicate fingers,
an excellent thing in a man.
And when he came home from work, on Friday evening,
he left whatever heaviness he had in the market.
There was no ritual, no ceremony between them.
She spread out the white tablecloth and that is how they
lived:
a man and a woman in the traditional way,
each one knowing the hour and the season.

In Yiddish, she writes down the words
that come to her now, and these are the words
she will say to him, when she visits the grave:
Alter, I will never forget you.
I miss you in every minute, I think of you steadily.
With a broken heart
I light the second yohrzeit candle. Esther.

The
poet,
Marc
Kaminsky, is co-director of
the Institute on
Humanities, Arts and
Aging of Hunter College's
Brookdale Center on Aging.
"Born in 1943, Kaminsky

grew up and attended
Columbia College in New
York City, earning
graduate degrees at Colum-
bia University and the
Hunter College School of
Social Work.

for Yeshieh Kaminsky

As a boy, supple
and six-witted, he learned how
to crowd his body in
a crack
in the earth
and let the horsemen eat the wind, riding by
overhead

Zhid! zhid! he heard them
biting into the sky
with their whips, and their long black nagaikas (whips)
Zhid! zhid!
cracking open the air
and foraging
in the fields above him

It took a long time
till that cry
stopped
in me

—Little mouse
little Jew, cringing
in the darkness he hears
nothing
by the terribly galloping
blood, his own heart

in hiding

Similarly, he happened to
disappear early one morning before the blood
red river
could come down
to the locked but where he was
closely guarded, and his guards were
waiting for light

,. -,t‘ ■

$ 1

for the crack
of dawn

•

.A 1W411 *

7 / 1

v""••IIIF

I

h.

One sure way to
get results is thru
the columns of

The Jewish News

Call 424-8833

by which they were going to lead him out
of six layers of skin
and out of his bones and his good two eyes
and out of his mouth
and his mind
and out of his cares for the poor

who were due to inherit the earth
after how many years of perdition

and out of his belief
he had planted a bomb in the mud
under the ballroom
where the Russian generals were dancing
quadrilles with the Polish gentry
while he crawled
three times under the elevated dance floor
to rekindle the wet fuse
and the only upshot of this
infintesimal piece of the Revolution of 1905
was a few splintered floorboards

for which he was going to die . ,

Z hid! zhid! enjoy for the last time
the pleasure of your morning
piss!

For the sun was already shaking
a few Russian tresses
over the edge of Poland
and they were about to take him
face to face with the Czar's
firing squad
in a field of stubble

Go on! Piss
everything out, or
you'll have to hold it in
till the end of time
Take aim now!

t-1-`

And they rushed in to get him

rt

5*- 4

He, meanwhile, was stealing away -
through the false dawn
of 1905
through factory towns like garrisons
and land masses
that were forever repeating the same
hay and potato
field under the same
lowering sky
and the black tree
that rushed into view
flickered on
and on in the window frame
hypnotically repeating
that he and his friends
could do nothing
on earth
change nothing
and his smallness
and futility
of all merely human effort
were plain before him —
he nearly jumped from the train

but the moment passed

And he rode on
invisibly to soldiers and gendarmes, he was passing
through all the border's
between Poltava and Rotterdam
without a name and a face
and a recognizable body
he was being spirited
through a whole continent of "objective conditions"
by the underground railroad

I remember once in the early sixties before
I or anyone knew anything
about the bombing
of North Vietnam and the fire
had not yet come
to Chicago, to Watts, to New York
it was before
my world cracked
open, and I was riding the D train
to an amusement park in Coney Island

r..1

and just as we came up for air and started over
the endless cemeteries of Brooklyn
my father pointed
to the place where he was still new
in his grave, and muttered

Is this what he came for?
to end up under
a subway? even here
he doesn't get any peace and quiet!

And I heard the thunder
of hooves - Y-
over his head

remembering his stories

and suddenly I became afraid
that the dead
still have ears and memories
and he was reliving the terrible days
when he had to be buried.

Anti-Semitism Reported
in Iowa Congressional Bid

INDIANAPOLIS — Lynn which stated that "all gen-
Cutler's unsuccessful elec- tiles are invited to attend.
tion bid for Congress in They will cook Lynn Cu-
Iowa last November was tler's goose kosher-style,"
marred by several anti- according to the Post and
Semitic incidents, the Opinion.
Jewish Post and Opinion
A friend is someone who
reported.
Ms. Cutler received an can see through you and
invitation to a barbecue still enjoy the show.

