Sheeny Mike Translated by Richard Fein
Glatshteyn, Yankev
SHEENY NUKE YANKEV TRANSLATED BY GLATSHTEYN RICHARD FEIN Sheeny Mike reposes in a bronze casket. Wailing overcomes a kingdom of twelve blocks, The mother's wig and the father's old...
...His essays, mainly garnered from his newspaper writing, have been collected in several volumes and convey his command of Yiddish literature...
...In what manner did he reign...
...In what manner did he subjugate...
...the complex persona, the braiding of the intellect and emotion...
...all that he wanted was-for his poetry to be read for itself...
...Let her approach the bronze casket...
...Sheeny Mike knows, but his lips are sealed, As Sheeny Mike smiles in his bronze casket...
...How determined she is to go through the lines And approach silently, silently, silently His silent head...
...The forefathers, the pious water-carriers and coarse God-fearing butchers, Remained in the cemeteries of the old home...
...Oh, the mother knew her loss As her child quickly climbed the ladder From pick-pocket to highest rung, To the great lord, king and commander Of the whole surrounding twelve blocks...
...The mother's wig laments his virtue, He made sure his mother and father Didn't go on welfare...
...by 1918 he was able to enter New York University Law School...
...Richard Fein is Professor of English and Coordinator of Jewish Studies at SUN Y College at New Paltz...
...Translations copyright e 1980 Richard Fein...
...The terror and guardian, the master and ruler Of the whole surrounding twelve blocks, Lies decked-out and sleeps...
...They didn't intercede When the father with the red eyes expansively Clothed the poverty in his house with a chant— Oh, shulkhn—"a table" and kise—"a chair...
...In what manner rule...
...Poland...
...His mother's rusted candle-sticks, The poor sabbath in the house, The damp walls, His father's beard and his mother's wig— Did they grasp that under the same roof Resided a monarch Who reigned and reigned, resounded and imposed, Until he fell into the hands of the enemy...
...teybl" and kise—"a tsher...
...Who had terminated the dynasty...
...Glatshteyn's work at times reminds one of the poetry of Wallace Stevens...
...In 1914 he came to New York and lived on the Lower East Side where he took various jobs...
...On the well of tears lies a hard, heavy stone, But he knows that Sheeny Mike sleeps now In a bronze casket...
...The laundry quivering on the clotheslines Was his meadows, While downstairs his father with purblind eyes Over a fat-stained religious text Translated with children from the Hebrew: Oh, shulkhn—'a...
...Oh, in her young and gleaming life He was her duke, The mounted rider, The blunt youth, the drunkard, Who vomited anger And flew into rages...
...But shamed is the father's beard in his old age, While all, all know from the whole surrounding twelve blocks That Sheeny Mike has fallen and now rests In a bronze casket...
...In what manner enthrall...
...Wailing overcomes a kingdom of twelve blocks, The mother's wig and the father's old beard...
...Near the end of his life he scorned the notion that Yiddish writers somehow required a special affection...
...Abandoned young-toughs hang around corners And roll cigarettes with nervous, thin fingers...
...After an unhappy stint as a teacher of Yiddish, he became involved in journalism, which he continued for the rest of his life...
...With other young Yiddish poets he helped form the In Zikh (Introspective} movement, noted for its effort to bring modernist currents into Yiddish poetry, particularly the concrete and suggestive image, free verse...
...Richard Fein 3 Squat tugboats plod dirty waters, Stinking fumes soot the tenement roofs In this small corner of the world...
...His province extended Even unto the house of law with the green lantern...
...In what manner did he dream the dream of his realm...
...A youth stands on the corner, fedora tipped sideways, And spits thin and far between his teeth...
...But his melding of modernist tendencies with folk and traditional motifs accounts for some of his finest effects...
...His two novels...
...In its linguistic innovations and intellectual concentration...
...Poet, critic, novelist, Yankev ¦ Glatshteyn was one of the finest examples of the man of letters in modern Yiddish literature...
...Let her approach the bronze casket...
...How much courage in her thin body, How much will-power in her locked lips, How much resolve in her proud legs For her to approach silently, silently, silently His silent head...
...Here, from the rooftop he glimpsed the vision of his realm...
...Yankev Glatshteyn (1896-1971) was born and grew up in Lublin...
...When Yash Set Out and When Yash Arrived, describe his return to the world of Polish Jewry in 1934...
Vol. 5 • July 1980 • No. 7
