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

