GLATSTEIN, Jacob

Nationality: American (originally Polish: immigrated to the United States, 1914). Born: Lublin, 20 August 1896. Education: Studied law, New York University, 1918. Career: Worked as a literary critic, journalist, and editor. Member, Inzikhistn (introspectivist) group of poets. Died: 19 November 1971.

Publications

Poetry

Yankev Glatshteyn. 1921.

Fraye Ferzn. 1926.

Kredos. 1929.

Yidishtaytshn. 1937.

Gedenklider [In Remembrance]. 1943.

Shtralendike Yidn [Radiating Jews]. 1946.

Dem Taatns Shotn [Father's Shadow]. 1953.

Fun mayn gantser mi [Of All My Labor]. 1956.

Di Freyd fun Yidisn Vort [Joy of the Yiddish Word]. 1961.

Mi-kol 'amali: Shirim u-fo'emot. 1964.

A Yid fun Lublin [A Jew from Lublin]. 1966.

Kh'tu dermonen. 1967.

Poems (English translations). 1970.

Gezangen fun rekhts tsu links [Songs from Right to Left].1971.

The Selected Poems of Jacob Glatstein (English translations).1972.

Selected Poems of Yankev Glatshteyn (English translations).1987.

I Keep Recalling: The Holocaust Poems of Jacob Glatstein (English translations). 1993.

Novels

Ven Yash iz Geforen [When Yash Went Forth]. 1938; asHomeward Bound, 1969.

Ven Yash iz Gekumen [When Yash Arrived]. 1940; as Home-coming at Twilight, 1962.

Emil un Karl (for children). 1940.

Play

Di Purim gvardye. 1930.

Other

Lider. 1921.

In tokh genumen: Eseyen (essays). 1947.

Oyf greyte temes. 1967.

In der velt mit Yidish: Eseyen (essays). 1972.

Editor, Finf un zibetsik yor yidishe prese in Amerike, 1870-1945 [75 Years of the Yiddish Press in the United States, 1870-1945]. 1945.

Editor, Mit mayne fartogbikher: In tokh genumen, 1958-1962. 1963.

Editor, with Israel Knox and Samuel Margoshes, Anthology of Holocaust Literature. 1973.

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Critical Study:

"Jacob Glatstein: The Literary Uses of Jewishness" by Chana Bloch, in Judaism, XIV, Fall 1965, pp. 414-31.

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Yiddish poet and writer Jacob Glatstein was born in Lublin, Poland, in 1896 and migrated to America in 1914. Four years later, at the age of 22, he studied law at New York University but never completed his degree probably due to his preoccupation with Yiddish writing. He was a core member of the Inzikhistn (Introspectivist) group, which sought to modernize Yiddish poetry. In 1920 the Yiddish poets Aaron Glants-Leyeles and N.B. Minkoff launched the Yiddish magazine In Zikh and published the anthology In Zikh: A Zamlung Introspektive Lider. The beliefs, ethos, and poetics of the Inzikhistn are contained in these publications. Noteworthy is the acceptance of free verse, suggestion and association in lieu of structured patterns and imposed ideology. The objective is to release the poet's full emotional response to everyday events far and near. Glatstein's first book of verse, Yankev Glatshteyn (1921), influenced by theories of self-analysis and individualism, expresses the emotion and thought of the individual in a modern metropolis. And it does so in the fullness of the Introspectivist charge of "individuality in everything and introspection in everything."

From his earliest poems onward Glatstein showed himself to be an Inzikhist with an individuality. Though he accepted the Introspectivist perspective that the medium not the subject makes a Yiddish poem Jewish, he ventured out on his own and resolved to be a rugged individualist. The title of his first book suggests this, and names of his second and third books of verse, Fraye Ferzn (1926) and Kredos (1929), confirm it. Cosmopolitanism infused with sentiments of Jewish tradition were dominant in his poetry. This was to change dramatically, however, with a visit to his birthplace in 1934, a year after Hitler's rise to power and several years before the outbreak of World War II. His autobiographical travel narratives, Ven Yash iz Geforen (1938; "When Yash Went Forth"; an earlier version was serialized in In Zikh ) and Ven Yash iz Gekumen (1940; "When Yash Arrived"), speak of the impending doom of European Jewry and the life-effecting changes it wrought to Glatstein, who saw himself as a free American artist now transformed to a marked Jew. This transformation from Lublin and back, drawing from Jewish tradition and made somber by the worsening state of interwar Jewry, became the hallmark of Glatstein's Holocaust poems.

Glatstein was the author of numerous books of poetry, novels, and essays. His poetry has been translated into English, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, and French and has been included in a number of anthologies. His volumes of poetry include Shtralendike Yidn (1946; "Radiating Jews"), Dem Taatns Shotn (1953; "Father's Shadow"), Di Freyd fun Yidisn Vort (1961; "Joy of the Yiddish Word"), and A Yid fun Lublin (1966; "A Jew from Lublin"). An exemplary poet and essayist, he also excelled as a literary critic, columnist, editor, and publicist. He was a quintessential Introspectivist whose skill and talent in multiple genres cast a long shadow on twentieth-century Jewish writing. He died of a heart attack in Queens, New York, at the age of 75.

—Zev Garber

See the essay on I Keep Recalling: The Holocaust Poems of Jacob Glatstein.