30 | JULY 30 • 2020 

W

riting out her emo-
tional reactions has 
long been one way 
of bringing personal insight and 
solace to Cindy Frenkel, and 
she often chooses poetry as her 
expressive form.
As a child, Frenkel’
s inter-
est in creative writing, hers 
and others, intensified while 
attending Cranbrook Schools 
during the late 1960s and into 
the 1970s, and her interest 
developed into a wide-rang-
ing career. She worked as an 
editorial assistant at the New 
Yorker in the 1980s and has 
been an instructor at Lawrence 
Technological University for the 
past seven years.
As the last century moved 
into this one, a series of overlap-
ping family tragedies, divorce 
and death, repeatedly brought 
Frenkel to her home desk as 
the setting for writing about the 
enduring impact.
Her decision to offer a group 
of poems for publication — 
some appearing in literary jour-
nals — succeeded last year, and 
her first chapbook, The Plague 
of the Tender-Hearted, will be 
released by Finishing Line Press 
in September. Besides telling 
about the difficult 
hurdles Frankel has 
faced, the book is 
offered as motivation 
for others wanting 
to advance beyond 
sadness. 
“I didn’
t want to 
just survive all I expe-
rienced,
” said Frenkel, 
61, a resident of 
Huntington Woods. “I wanted 
to thrive, and that’
s what’
s hap-
pening now. My work has given 
me meaning. I wanted to teach, 
and I wanted to write.
”
Frenkel, the only daughter 
in a family with three older 
brothers, explains that she was 

raised in a loving way but was 
discouraged from talking about 
relationship difficulties and 
troubling feelings. The conver-
sational focus of her parents 
was on what people did, and a 
youthful portrait by her dad, 
which became the book cover, 
keeps with that focus by show-
ing her at ballet. 
“I wanted a deeper connec-
tion with people,
” Frenkel said. 
“I wanted to talk about ideas 
and feel that there was safety 
in that exchange. My parents 
avoided difficult subjects and 
believed people shouldn’
t talk 
about grief.
”
As Frenkel coped 
with a brother’
s 
addiction and suicide 
amid her mother’
s 
terminal illness, she 
also was coping with 
her own divorce. 
The most important 
part of her ability to 
thrive was in being 
motivated to raise her 
daughter with understandings 
she gained after her own frus-
trations.
Her poem “Raising her is 
better than” lists outstanding 
pastimes and ranks each day 
of parenting above other dra-
matic experiences: the Holy 

Wall in Jerusalem, cold water 
on a sweltering day, French gar-
dens … In contrast, “How You 
Said Goodbye” recalls the last 
conversation with her beloved 
brother. 

“Part of writing poetry 
became my way of processing 
grief,
” Frenkel said. “I wanted 
my brother’
s life to have mean-
ing, and if this poetry could 
be presented in a way that was 
compassionate, real and helpful 
to someone, then the book was 
worth doing,
”
Frenkel studied writing at 
Bennington College in Vermont 
before getting a bachelor’
s 
degree at the University of 
Michigan. Although enrolling 
in master’
s studies at New York 
University, she moved into a 
degree program at Columbia 
University because her father 
encouraged Ivy League creden-
tials.
Important to Frenkel’
s studies 
was attending classes taught by 
award-winning favorite poets 

— Galway Kinnell and Joseph 
Brodsky. She has included some 
of their instruction methods, 
such as memorizing a favorite 
poem, into classes she teaches, 
some of which were in urban 
elementary schools. 
Frenkel’
s first book project, 
100 Essential Books for Jewish 
Readers, was a partnership 
with Rabbi Daniel Syme, who 
also experienced a brother’
s 
suicide. In working together, 
they moved away from family 
problems and into a variety of 
reviews. 
Frenkel, who has written for 
newspapers, submitted an arti-
cle about her late brother to the 
JN in 2018, connecting to the 
suicide of designer Kate Spade. 
Wanting to reach out in many 
ways to help others feeling des-

perate, she was on the founding 
board of the group A Single 
Soul, started by Rabbi Syme to 
prevent suicide.
“I’
ve had the great privilege 
of lifelong friends and even 
some of my brother’
s friends 
who were in recovery and really 
heartbroken when he died,
” she 
said. “They helped keep me 
afloat after his death.
“I try to pay it forward for 
all the people who have been 
so kind to me, and this book 
is about a woman claiming 
her power. It’
s about my life 
and having a voice. I think it’
s 
a life-affirming manuscript in 
that regard.
” 

The Plague of the Tender-Hearted and 

information about the author are avail-

able on her website, cindyfrenkel.com. 

Arts&Life

poetry

“Part of writing poetry became 
my way of processing grief.”

— CINDY FRENKEL

Poet brings impact of grief in
The Plague of the Tender-Hearted.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Cindy
Frenkel

P
b i
i
f
i f i

Life-Affirming 
Expression