JUNE 24 • 2021 | 39

W

hile most
of Deborah
Hochberg’s profes-
sional hours have been spent
as a nurse practitioner helping
patients overcome insomnia,
many of her waking hours away
from work have been given to
the satisfaction of writing poet-
ry to express deep feelings.
It started years ago after
observing the way her late
father, Israel Hochberg, wrote
verse in English and Hebrew.
Gradually, they wrote together.
“We would talk on the
phone, and he would say a
line,
” Hochberg recalled about
their subjects, which vary from

memories to the
passage of time.
“Then I would say
a line. We would go
on in that fashion
for a while.
”
On her own and
with what she antic-
ipated as perpetually private,
Hochberg wrote about heritage,
relationships, everyday activ-
ities and anything that gave
her pause. While her closest
relatives, a brother and sister,
as well as friends followed her
classical piano training, cham-
ber group performances and
home gardening talents in Oak
Park, they were not told about
the poems.
“They are all reflections,
aspects and facets of myself,
”
said Hochberg, who also
devoted time to writing movie
reviews for the Metro Times.
The pandemic kept her
writing poems and somehow
awakened her to the possibility
of opening up her reflections
through publishing. After work
with other nurses testing people
for COVID-19 and thinking
about the life-threatening
implications of the pandemic,
Hochberg contemplated mor-
tality and wanted an aspect of
herself to be lasting.
“I had all these poems, and
there was something in me that
wanted to create a book,
” said
Hochberg, 60. “I wanted my
poems to be preserved in the
world.
”
Through Mission Point Press
in Traverse City, she chose 50
poems for her book Waiting
for the Snow: Poems. The
title comes from a poem that
reflects on a Sunday of shop-
ping before a snowfall. It reads
in part:
“Home before the first flakes
Drift from the sky.
”
“The poems [enter into]
exploration and awareness and

just the music of the
words,
” Hochberg
said. “Often the
poems would sur-
prise me, illumi-
nating something I
didn’t realize I knew.
“The writing has
been a map of the wanderings
of my soul through the world.
“Years ago, I attended a read-
ing by poet Robert Bly, and he
said something like poetry is
the place where the soul and
the world touch, and it made an
impression on me.
”
Raised in a secular Jewish
home with a strong cultural
identity, Hochberg has a few
poems that reflect the Judaism
she explored in adulthood.
Hochberg studied religion
through programs offered by
the Florence Melton School of
Adult Jewish Learning.
Jewish heritage entered
into thoughts about family,
unknown and known. In honor
of her personally unknown
great-grandmother, she wrote:
“From the ashes
of your unmarked grave
at Treblinka
the light of your spirit rises
to inspire my life.
”
“In 2011, I traveled to Poland
with an Israeli company,
”
Hochberg said. “I saw paint-
ed synagogues, and I visited
Treblinka, where so many of
my family members perished.
I walked the same streets of
Warsaw where my maternal
grandparents walked, and we
briefly stopped in the town
where my father was born.
”
Whether about travels or
daily experiences, Hochberg
presents a serious outlook.
“Occasionally, I am kept
awake by lines of poetry that
come to me late at night,
”
Hochberg said.
“I rest easier after I write
them down.
”

The Music
of Words

ARTS&LIFE
POETRY

Metro Detroiter publishes book of
poetry that refl
ects on her personal
experiences and Jewish heritage.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Details

Waiting for the
Snow: Poems
is available
on Amazon.
$12.95.

Deborah
Hochberg