Under Dust and Shards My Breath: Abraham Sutzkever’s Poetry of Resistance, Renewal and Wonder

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27th – date the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz in 1945

A virtual presentation by poets Mark Melnicove and Anna Wrobel

Thursday, Jan. 27^th | 6:30 – 7:45 PM ET

Advanced registration required by 1/27 at 12 PM to receive the Zoom link

An exploration of the great Yiddish poet of ghetto, forest, Moscow and Tel Aviv. Yiddishist scholar, Ruth Wisse, speaks of Sutzkever’s poetry as “an exceptional instance in the history of art” whose poems reveal “the saving grace of beauty…the redemptive power of art.” He was one of YIVO’s Paper Brigade preserving a dying language as part of “rescuing the dead…and securing for them a poetic grave.” Sutzkever’s metaphoric and documentary poetry gave voice to both personal and communal resistance to death in a time of forbidden Jewish survival. Mark and Anna weave some original poems into the fabric of Sutzkever’s poetic biography. Q & A to follow.

Program dedicated to Lee Sharkey (of blessed memory) – storied Maine Jewish poet, editor and recipient of the Sutzkever Translation Prize in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2013