Anna Margolin

Anna Margolin (Yiddish: אַננאַ מאַרגאָלין‎) is the pen name of Rosa Harning Lebensboym (1887–1952) a twentieth century Jewish Russian-American, Yiddish language poet.

Anna Margolin
BornRosa Harning Lebensboym
1887 (1887)
Brest, Belarus, Russian Empire
Died1952 (aged 64–65)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationPoet
NationalityUnited States
Literary movementDi Yunge

Biography

Born in Brest, Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire, she was educated up to secondary school level, where she studied Hebrew.[1] She first went to New York in 1906, and permanently settled there in 1913. Most of her poetry was written there.[2] Margolin was associated with both the Di Yunge and ‘introspectivist’ groups in the Yiddish poetry scene at the time, but her poetry is uniquely her own.[3]

In her early years in New York City Margolin joined the editorial staff of the liberal Yiddish daily Der Tog (The Day; founded 1914). Under her real name she edited a section entitled "In der froyen velt" (In the women's world); and also wrote journalistic articles under various pseudonyms, including "Sofia Brandt," and – more often, in the mid 1920s – "Clara Levin."[4][5]

Though her reputation rests mainly on the single volume of poems she published in her lifetime, Lider ('Poems', 1929), a posthumous collection, Drunk from the Bitter Truth, including English translations has been published. One reviewer described her work as "sensual, jarring, plainspoken, and hard, the record of a soul in direct contact with the streets of 1920s New York".[6]

Bibliography

Poetry

  • Lider. [Poems] (1929)
  • Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin. Translated Shirley Kumove. (SUNY, 2005) ISBN 0-7914-6579-9 [ Review]

References
  1. Zhitnitski, L.; Jenni Buch; Dr. Samuel Chani (2006-11-06). "Jewish Brest – its Writers and Cultural figures". Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  2. "Drunk from the Bitter Truth - Summary". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  3. "Modern Yiddish literature > Yiddish women writers". 2006-11-06. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  4. Novershtern, Abraham. "'Who Would Have Believed That a Bronze Statue Can Weep': The Poetry of Anna Margolin." Prooftexts 10.3 (September 1990): 435-467; here: 435.
  5. Brenner, Naomi. "Slippery Selves: Rachel Bluvstein and Anna Margolin in Poetry and in Public." Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues No. 19 (Spring 2010): 100-133; here: 112
  6. Nordel, J. D. "Poetry Microreviews". Archived from the original on 2008-10-14. Retrieved 2008-12-15.
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