Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
Since 1957. I was offered a job.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
I always liked writing, but did it as part of my work. After I retired I became interested in the Yiddish poetry of Itzik Manger, a very popular Yiddish writer of the first half of the twentieth century, and started to hear and write down English translations of his work. I read a couple at a Tree open mic, and they were well enough received for me to continue, both with Manger and other poets.
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
Having a welcoming audience has to be encouraging. For some years I looked forward to the open mics, and made a point of getting something ready, and hearing what others were doing. A high point for me came when Tree published its first chapbook, which was a bilingual collection of Manger poems, There is a Tree (His poems, my translations).
Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
I can't really say that I know enough about other places to make these kinds of comparisons.
Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?
I have also for several years been a member of Ottawa Field Naturalists Club, and have written quite a few nature poems of my own. Until the pandemic, for a number of years I would read a poem to start a meeting, and they were kind enough to introduce me as the poet laureate of the club. I have read that when the position of Poet Laureate was established in England five of six centuries ago, the Poet Laureate was given each year a hogshead of rum to keep up the good work. I didn't get that, but I liked having an audience.
Q: What are you working on now?
My translations have appeared in England (Modern Poetry in Translation) and online and in print in Canada and the U.S., often in Pakntreger, the organ of the Yiddish Book Centre, Amherst. I have also become interested in translating from English to Yiddish and have been invited to a Yiddish Open Mic Zoom group run from England.
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