Samuel Menashe, Neglected Master
 

While looking for something else this morning I made the serendipitous discovery of a poet I had not previously heard of, Samuel Menashe, born 1925.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Menashe

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6430065

This is like a godmother in a fairy tale visiting the poet sitting in the ashes and I can't be reflect how different poetry publication and recognition was for him than for the notices I read about daily of this one and that one being Poet in Residence at Podunk YMCA or getting a Fellowship to Oxbridge or a guest professor position at Yarvard.

I am curious to know if anyone knows any more about him, or if everyone knows about him but me and I am just an ignoramus. The hip New Yorkers might be able to fill in some blanks.

Imagine, nearly 85 and suddenly recognized with this windfall that will enable him to live more comfortably. I am happy for him, the man who couldn't retreat from poetry.




At a Standstill



That statue, that cast

Of my solitude

Has found its niche

In this kitchen

Where I do not eat

Where the bathtub stands

Upon cat feet --

I did not advance

I cannot retreat

Yes, he's been receiving a bit more attention in recent years--I think Dana Gioia had a lot to do with his "discovery", as he did with Kay Ryan's.

I heard him read at Powow. At his best, he is amazing--sort of a compressed Kay Ryan/Tim Murphy (hard as that is to imagine).

I have his New and Selected Poems, published in 2000 by Talisman House, preface by Dana Gioia.

A great advantage of having him on a MoM thread is that his poems are short and so easy to type in. “Few of his poems are longer than 10 lines,” observes Gioia.

The Spright of Delight

The spright of delight
Springs, summersaults
Vaults out of sight
Rising, self-spun
Weight overcome.


The Oracle

Feet east
Head west
Arms spread
North and south
He lies in bed
Intersected
At the mouth.


Gioia does list in the preface a number of well-known writers who supported Menashe’s work way before he came into the spotlight of the Poetry Foundation.

Thanks Mike and Andrew. I am going to look for that book to buy it.

And the reference to Dana G. prompted me to look in his bok "Disappearing Ink", and sure enough, there is a resumé there. It just didn't stick when I read it earlier.

It is silly, I guess, but I am just so happy for him to get that cash prize and recognition. It must feel so gratifying.

Samuel is a magical miniaturist, and I am delighted to hear of the Poetry Foundation's award. He has long been allotted the occasional column inch in the New Yorker, but yes, Dana is entirely responsible for the recognition he is receiving now.

never mind

Don't know if this was Nemo's "never mind," but Menashe is one of those poets of a certain generation who seems to feel that his age and experience give him the right to be... a bit of a bastard sometimes. (I met him when a poem of mine angered him at a reading, he started heckling me, and I gave out to him afterward.) He generally expects you to know exactly who he is, and he seemed a bit hurt when I met him (well, tore into him for being a douche when I was trying to read) that I didn't immediately clock who he was.

If I recall, though I only got second-hand reports in Ireland, he was a prima donna when he read for MM, the gist of it being that he threw a hissy fit that he wasn't being paid (no one was, ever, and we never promised such), and that his groupies had to pay cover at the venue (which was one of those art spaces that had to pay rent, electricity, etc.). He generally treated Ray Pospisil (who was hosting at the time) like a servant (apparently something of a pattern for old Sam), and even managed to insult him from the stage a few times. To add insult to injury, Menashe's acolytes pissed off after Menashe read, with half the program to go. (MM readings sometimes lasted as long as two hours, by the way.)

Does this make the guy a bad poet? No, though some good poems aside, I've never been that enamored of his work. I mean, he's fine as a poet, I guess, but the level of acclaim he's gotten (mostly abroad) for years frankly baffles me. And there's a difference between being hard-nosed and assertive and being a self-important a$$hole who treats those "beneath him" with open contempt. We remember these things in New York.

Quincy

Yes, you read my sealed lips correctly, Quincy. A royal prick.

Nemo

Well lads, he got the prize for poetry skills, not for social skills.

They say querulousness increases with age. The mind boggles.

The 'Sphere is no stranger to such people.

P