Yiddishy doings
On Thursday, at the 92nd St. Y, a number of leading contemporary Yiddish vocalists will perform the songs of Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman. (Here's my most recent post about her.)
Also at the Y, on November 1st, Alana Newhouse moderates a discussion entitled "The Joys of Yiddishism." The question on the table (apparently): "Why are so many young Jews becoming interested in a language considered dead?" (Answers: (a) not so many; (b) superficial interest; (c) not dead.) More complicated, interesting, and articulate answers to be furnished by Alyssa Quint (literary scholar and Forward columnist), Itzik Gottesman (associate editor of the Yiddish Forward, and - by the way - Beyle Gottesman's son), and Allan Nadler (author and Forward columnist). Sense a trend? Newhouse is, of course, arts and culture editor at the Forward.
This Friday, for free!, you can hear Your Favorite Blogger talk about Yiddish and today's Lower East Side. I will also read a couple of my Yiddish poems, with English translations -- and then, separately and a bit later, read our Yiddish version of The Cat in the Hat. Davening at 6, a little smackerel of something at 7:15, I should be talking at 8 or so. This is all part of Synaplex at Town and Village Synagogue. (Actually, the most entertaining part of the evening should be the Yiddish sing-along led by Binyumen Schaechter, also at around 7:15. Schaechter, of course, is Beyle Gottesman's nephew and Itzik Gottesman's cousin. Who said the Yiddish world is inbred?)
Showing posts with label Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman. Show all posts
10/24/06
6/24/05
Mazl-tov, Beyle!
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, Yiddish singer, songwriter, and poet, has been awarded one of twelve National Heritage Awards from the NEA. The Awards are the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
I haven't written nearly enough about her in this space. Below is my translation of one of her poems. You can also hear some of her singing (you wouldn't be amiss in buying one of her CDs, either).
Let me repeat, with joy: מזל־טובֿ, ביילע! איר האָט עס כּשר פֿאַרדינט. (Mazl-tov, Beyle! It couldn't have been given to a more deserving person.)
Nobody
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
Nobody loves the weak one,
quietly modest,
watching and waiting,
the small one.
Nobody loves the one who’s alone,
hid in himself,
lost
in the inner I,
the one alone with himself.
No one loves
the one who loses,
in constant collapse,
one and lonely,
the nobody –
nobody.
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, Yiddish singer, songwriter, and poet, has been awarded one of twelve National Heritage Awards from the NEA. The Awards are the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
I haven't written nearly enough about her in this space. Below is my translation of one of her poems. You can also hear some of her singing (you wouldn't be amiss in buying one of her CDs, either).
Let me repeat, with joy: מזל־טובֿ, ביילע! איר האָט עס כּשר פֿאַרדינט. (Mazl-tov, Beyle! It couldn't have been given to a more deserving person.)
Nobody
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
Nobody loves the weak one,
quietly modest,
watching and waiting,
the small one.
Nobody loves the one who’s alone,
hid in himself,
lost
in the inner I,
the one alone with himself.
No one loves
the one who loses,
in constant collapse,
one and lonely,
the nobody –
nobody.
4/3/05
Yiddish Poets!
Among other events I wish I could go to in the coming weeks is this one on Sunday, April 10th, featuring a lineup of Yiddish women poets reading in both original and translation. Let me tell you about them, so that you'll go and hear them (and I can get the merit of adding a few to the crowd, even though, since I'm on call then, I can't be there myself). What follows are not wholly objective appraisals; Yiddish poets all know each other. (Dovid Katz says -- and he's right -- that today's Yiddish literature will be worth anything only if present and future critics from outside the Yiddish world recognize whatever quality it possesses. So if you go to this event on the 10th, and go you should, let me know honestly afterward what you thought of them.)
Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath manages to combine psychological sensitivity with homey (but deceptive) simplicity of speech in her careful though relatively unadorned and untricksterly work. She manages to be both acccessible and innovative, achieving literary quality without the obscurity which often accompanies it. I helped translate some of her poems for her first (and so far only) book, and I count myself a friend of hers, so I'm not exactly unbiased. In the spirit of beser hot ken shier nisht (you can always do better), I will say that sometimes I wish she pushed herself to risk new forms or venture some lengthier work.
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman is one of the most important poets writing today in Yiddish. Her latest collection, Perpl shlenglt zikh der veg [The Winding Purple Road], includes a wide range of work, ranging from dark memoir to cutting parodies of past Yiddish giants (one of my favorite poems of hers is a dead-on, if unfair, takedown of Moyshe-Leyb Halpern) to lyric meditations on the South Bronx [sic!]. She is verbally inventive, if traditional in style, and manages to infuse each poem with the song and picture she has also created in other parallel parts of her life. (She is an accomplished painter and a very well-known Yiddish songwriter; I assume that she will sing a song-poem or two at the event.)
Miriam-Khaye Seigel [scroll down for a picture] is (shocker) another friend of mine! She's mostly a songwriter, with a singing voice that should be poured into the porch of every musically deprived ear. I've only heard a few songs she's written (because she's a perfectionist when she comes to writing and performing), but my impression is that she is a traditionalist when it comes to genre but a iconoclast in content. She is someone to watch.
Among other events I wish I could go to in the coming weeks is this one on Sunday, April 10th, featuring a lineup of Yiddish women poets reading in both original and translation. Let me tell you about them, so that you'll go and hear them (and I can get the merit of adding a few to the crowd, even though, since I'm on call then, I can't be there myself). What follows are not wholly objective appraisals; Yiddish poets all know each other. (Dovid Katz says -- and he's right -- that today's Yiddish literature will be worth anything only if present and future critics from outside the Yiddish world recognize whatever quality it possesses. So if you go to this event on the 10th, and go you should, let me know honestly afterward what you thought of them.)
Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath manages to combine psychological sensitivity with homey (but deceptive) simplicity of speech in her careful though relatively unadorned and untricksterly work. She manages to be both acccessible and innovative, achieving literary quality without the obscurity which often accompanies it. I helped translate some of her poems for her first (and so far only) book, and I count myself a friend of hers, so I'm not exactly unbiased. In the spirit of beser hot ken shier nisht (you can always do better), I will say that sometimes I wish she pushed herself to risk new forms or venture some lengthier work.
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman is one of the most important poets writing today in Yiddish. Her latest collection, Perpl shlenglt zikh der veg [The Winding Purple Road], includes a wide range of work, ranging from dark memoir to cutting parodies of past Yiddish giants (one of my favorite poems of hers is a dead-on, if unfair, takedown of Moyshe-Leyb Halpern) to lyric meditations on the South Bronx [sic!]. She is verbally inventive, if traditional in style, and manages to infuse each poem with the song and picture she has also created in other parallel parts of her life. (She is an accomplished painter and a very well-known Yiddish songwriter; I assume that she will sing a song-poem or two at the event.)
Miriam-Khaye Seigel [scroll down for a picture] is (shocker) another friend of mine! She's mostly a songwriter, with a singing voice that should be poured into the porch of every musically deprived ear. I've only heard a few songs she's written (because she's a perfectionist when she comes to writing and performing), but my impression is that she is a traditionalist when it comes to genre but a iconoclast in content. She is someone to watch.
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