Naomi Replansky (May 23, 1918 – January 7, 2023) was an American poet and translator. ''

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'' described her poetry as investigating "social history through individual lives". While her writing initially received little critical attention, she gradually developed a following which grew throughout her life. Collections of her work include ''Ring Song'' (1952), ''The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934-1994'' (1994), and ''Collected Poems'' (2012). Replansky also translated German and Yiddish works into English.

Background

Replansky was born to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, the daughter of Fannie (Ginsberg) and Sol Replansky, and graduated from James Monroe High School. She enrolled at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admin ...

but did not graduate, instead dropping out to look for work. In the 1950s, she attended the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

, where she earned a bachelor's degree in geography. Replansky lived in Los Angeles and San Francisco for much of her adult life. Attempts to move to Paris in the 1950s were unsuccessful, as her passport was revoked during that time, apparently in reaction to her left-wing political beliefs.

Work

Replansky spent many years earning a living outside of poetry, working a number of service and technical jobs throughout her life. However, she later became an instructor of poetry at

Pitzer College Pitzer College is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. One of the Claremont Colleges, the college has a curricular emphasis on the social sciences, behavioral sciences, international programs, and media studies. Pitzer is k ...

, and also taught the subject at the

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. Her ''Collected Poems'' won the Poetry Society of America's 2013

William Carlos Williams Award The William Carlos Williams Award is given out by the Poetry Society of America for a poetry book published by a small press, non-profit, or university press. The award is endowed by the family and friends of Geraldine Clinton Little, a poet an ...

and was a finalist for the 2014 Poets' Prize. Replansky's poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, such as ''No More Masks!'', ''Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust,'' ''Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies,'' and ''Poets of the Non-Existent City: Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era.'' Her four books of poetry are: * ''Ring Song'' (Scribners 1952) * ''Twenty-One Poems, Old and New'' (Gingko Press 1988) * ''The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934-1994'' (Another Chicago Press 1994) * ''Collected Poems'' (Black Sparrow Press/Godine 2012) "My chief poetic influences," Replansky stated, "have been

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of t ...

, folk songs,

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

George Herbert George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was an English poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognised as "one of the foremost British devoti ...

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...

and Japanese poetry." ''Ring Song,'' containing poems written from 1936 to 1952, was a finalist for the 1953

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

. Of the following hiatus in publication, she says, "I write slowly." The chapbook ''Twenty-One Poems'' contains versions of work contained in the other two collections. ''The Dangerous World'' contains forty-two new poems as well as twenty-five revised poems from ''Ring Song.'' The meticulousness of her work indicates a painstaking mind and an unusual degree of perfectionism in the craftsmanship of her poems. Though often small in scale, they are giant in meaning. Her ''Collected Poems'' include many unpublished works.

Reception

Margalit Fox Margalit Fox (born 1961) is an American writer. She began her career in publishing in the 1980s, before switching to journalism in the 1990s. She joined the obituary department of '' The New York Times'' in 2004, and authored over 1,400 obituari ...

of ''

'' described Replansky's poetry as "keenly celebrated yet curiously unheralded" for decades, suggesting that her spare style and reliance on rhyme was unfashionable to many poets and critics during the mid-20th century. However, as the years progressed, her writing was praised by

David Ignatow David Ignatow (February 7, 1914 – November 17, 1997) was an American poet and editor. Life David Ignatow was born in Brooklyn on February 7, 1914, and spent most of his life in the New York City area. He died on November 17, 1997, at his ...

, Marie Ponsot,

Grace Paley Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007) was an American short story author, poet, teacher, and political activist. Paley wrote three critically acclaimed collections of short stories, which were compiled in the Pulitzer Prize and Na ...

, and

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...

George Oppen George Oppen (April 24, 1908 – July 7, 1984) was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism and moved to Mexico in 1950 to avoid the attentions ...

wrote of her in 1981: "Naomi Replansky must be counted among the most brilliant American poets. That she has not received adequate praise is one of the major mysteries of the world of poetry." ''Booklist'' said of ''The Dangerous World,'' "with timeless grace, she sets each poem simmering with powerful phrasing and universal experience.... Replansky brings us ageless work in a collection that should not be missed." Replansky's work was the subject of a lengthy article in the ''Los Angeles Review of Books'', which cites

United States Poet Laureate The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the official poet of the United States. During their term, the poet laureate seeks to raise the national cons ...

Philip Levine, "who once characterized Replansky as 'an intensely political poet, appalled by the cruelty, greed, and corruption of the masters of nations and corporations, appalled and enraged.' Nevertheless, she mostly eschews the role of protest poet, opting instead to dramatize the intense vulnerability of individual human subjects in a verse style that is both delicate and tough-minded.... One lives with Replansky's poems instead of simply reading or hearing them, because they speak, with intensity and concision, to essential human concerns: the longing to belong and the concomitant ache of exclusion; rage against injustice; awareness of one's own vulnerabilities, particularly those that come with aging; and the profound joy at experiencing true fellowship with others or communion with oneself." " She was also known for her translations from Yiddish and from the German of

Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. Early life Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-cl ...

and

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

; Brecht's "Der Sumpf," set by composer

Hanns Eisler Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was an Austrian composer (his father was Austrian, and Eisler fought in a Hungarian regiment in World War I). He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artisti ...

as one of five "Hollywood Elegies," was long known only in her version ("The Swamp") until the original resurfaced among

Peter Lorre Peter Lorre (; born László Löwenstein, ; June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before movin ...

's papers and was published in the 1997 Frankfurt edition. Her translation of Brecht's play, "St. Joan of the Stockyards" was performed off-Broadway by the Encounter Theater Company. A documentary film ''Naomi Replansky at 100'' by Megan Rossman, won several honors. An oil on linen portrait of Replansky by the artist Joseph Solman is in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

in Washington, D.C.

Personal life

Replansky turned 100 in May 2018 and lived another four years, giving her last public reading on December 10, 2022, less than a month before her death. In her later years, she lived on the

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with her Vienna-born wife, Eva Kollisch, an author and professor of comparative literature and women's studies at

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sarah Lawrence scholarship, particularly ...

. Kollisch was rescued from the Nazis on a 1939

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

to the United Kingdom, eventually arriving in the United States in 1940. Together since the 1980s, Replansky and Kollisch married in 2009. Replansky died at her home on January 7, 2023, at the age of 104.

References

External links