| Sue Saniel Elkind |
| USA A Tribute to Sue Saniel Elkind: "Our Poetry Mother" Edited by Andrena Zawinski. Text by Will Elliott, Assistant Editor.
LOVE POEM by Sue Saniel Elkind Poet Sue Elkind, who died on January 21,1994, is finally beginning to receive recognition, long overdue, as a distinctive, significant voice in contemporary American poetry. As far as her art was concerned, Elkind was something of a late bloomer; she began writing poetry at the age of sixty-four. During the course of her career, Elkind published six collections: "The Final Season" (Papier Mache, 1993),"Bare As The Trees" (Papier Mache Press, 1992), "Another Language" (Papier Mache Press, 1988), "Waiting For Order" (Naked Man Press, 1988), "Dinosaurs and Grandparents" (MAF Press, 1988), and "No Longer Afraid" (Lintel, 1985). BARE AS THE TREES by Sue Saniel Elkind it happened anger that knew no season her death happened and
Believing that writers are nourished when they interact with one another, Elkind established the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop in Pittsburgh. There, she inspired many fledgling writers to devote their lives to the art of creating poetry. Elkind was affectionately referred to, by her students in the workshop, as "Poetry Mother." The Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop published its first anthology in 1990. A second anthology, "Pittsburgh and Tri-State Area Poets", was published in 1992. After Elkind's death, her daughter, Carol, honored her mother by compiling a poetry anthology, "Crossing Limits: African Americans & American Jews: Poetry from Pittsburgh." In a letter to PoetryMagazine.com, Carol Elkind said, "My publishing the poetry anthology, 'Crossing Limits' was no accident. After my mother's death, I was driven to create something that would connect me with her and at the same time develop something of my own. I created "Crossing Limits" so that two groups of people could learn about each other through the art of poetry." "I learned much about my mother through her poetry - things that I was unable to address with her on a day-to-day basis - difficult issues, painful ones. Poetry gave this woman a sense of belonging she never had before. To my mother and poet, Sue Saniel Elkind, thank you for the unconditional love and encouragement you gave to me in your lifetime. Your love of poetry and the legacy you left us live on in 'Crossing Limits.'" Carol recommended to us these two poems by her mother, Sue Saniel Elkind, from which she learned so much about her mother's aging and maturing process: LIKE A TREE Inspired by her mother's social consciousness, Carol has spread her love into the public schools of Pittsburgh by developing a "Crossing Limits" curriculum implemented by poets from the anthology. Her plans include a Quarterly by the same name and with the same intent. NO ONE SAID YOU WOULD LIKE IT by Sue Saniel Elkind To all you mothers of daughters the teens have yet to be dealt with, But one day the bud will bloom, become Remembering Sue Elkind, PoetryMagazine.com's Associate Editor, Andrena Zawinski, says, "My relationship with Sue San Elkind was limited to a few happenstance yet memorable phone conversations. Sue liked my work as I did hers. In these chats, she always advised me in what I like to think of as a grandmotherly way - unlike the advice my own mother issued in endless frets about what trouble would befall me any time I ventured away from Pittsburgh - Sue encouraged me to take risks in my writing, in getting my work published, and she encouraged me to travel." "I used her poem, Night Watch, as a model for an exercise writing about our fears in the HIV/AIDS victims poetry writing workshop I was running at the time, " continues Zawinski, "my own poem, 'Property Value', grew from that - a poem in which, on the surface, I blamed the needs of the house I lived in for stalling my traveling and writing. That poem appeared in "Sistersong: Women Across Cultures" and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. So, I am thankful to Sue for that, too. I hope that after her death, she will continue to have an audience for her work. Her small body of poetry is one with a great deal to say in a voice so clear it cannot help but encourage others to write." THE LISTENING by Sue Saniel Elkind Once, after they untied your hands Was it in this lifetime, mother, Bend close, mother, whisper everything "Sue was one of the most important people that came into my life. She was like another mother to me, and many of us in the Squirrel Hill Writing Workshop referred to her as 'Our Poetry Mother,'" says Georgeann Rettberg, who was one of Elkind's students at the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop. "I owe the publishing of my book, 'Steelworker's Family', to her," says Rettberg, "she insisted I organize my manuscript, and we would sit at her kitchen table surrounded by my poems, putting them in order. I miss her very much. When she died, I wrote a poem about her, and as if she was standing there beside me, this poem came out in her voice." Joanne Samreny, one of Elkind's students from the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop, says, "Sue Elkind was a dear, dear woman, a poet who said quite a bit with few words. I liked her style. She was very serious about keeping the Squirrel Hill Writing Workshop she started together and viable." A fellow poet of Elkind's, Rosaly Roffman, says, "Sue was a good friend, once you were deemed 'OK' and she always acknowledged occasions. For instance, after my mother died, she planted a tree in her name; when I was ill, she sent me to her own doctor. She was generous with her time, encouraging people to submit poems to publishers. She was also wonderfully angry when a lot of the time we couldn't begin to know where that was coming from. She tolerated no bullshit or what she believed to be 'bullshit.' She was the reason I kept coming back to the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop," continues Roffman, "I think poetry kept her alive. She did not suffer fools easily and would rail at the gods for her own infirmities. We were Sue's salon and the poetry kept her alive, I'm convinced." In addition to being a gifted poet, Sue Elkind should also be remembered as a caring woman who made numerous and selfless contributions to the community in which she lived. Elkind assisted in organizing the Jewish Community Senior Citizens Program, in Pittsburgh. She also established and administered a foster home placement program through Craig House-Technoma, a day school for emotionally disturbed children and adolescents. After Elkind's death, Rosaly Roffman wrote 'The Real Subject,' a poem in honor of her friend and fellow poet. "I rearranged reality a little bit just to enable myself to go on with the pulse feeling, says Roffman. "I remember how angry I was when I was in Germany and Anne Sexton, whose poems I had reviewed for several publications, died and no one told me and then no one told me she committed suicide when she was such a life-line, herself. How mad I was. And her last book was "The Aweful Rowing Towards God." And when Sue died, her daughter Carol called to tell it, and I was sad though we knew how ill she was, and angry that another light went out - and thus, this piece. I wrote it for poetry and Sue and time." Following her death in 1994, Kalliope, A Journal of Women's Arts and Literature, founded a scholarship in Elkind's name, awarding an annual prize of $1,000 to an exemplary female poet. PROPERTY VALUE by Andrena Zawinski Up inside this attic nest loft Above across the patch And I am beginning to see This house has taken its turn Impatiens flowering sills These calloused hands might have each sacrifice measured against becomes a writer's colony stripped bare of rococo and dark, struggling for harmony against but poor chatter has it from behind above the news spreading across
I HEAR BELLS by Andrena Zawinski I hear the bells I hear the bells I hear the bells THE REAL SUBJECT by Rosaly Roffman I'm not leaving my house today, I see a pair where the bunions I see a pair of black patent leather My doctor never polishes his boots, But I don't want to write about shoes, No wonder I see shoes, © Rosaly Roffman, All Rights Reserved. Carol Elkind tells us that the following is
inscribed on
Sue Saniel Elkind's headstone from: 'A Song of Thanks' |
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