FOR ENID WITH LOVE a festschrift A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Reminiscences for Enid Dame Edited by Barry Wallenstein
NYQ Books is an imprint of The New York Quarterly Foundation, Inc. The New York Quarterly Foundation, Inc. P. O. Box 2015 Old Chelsea Station New York, NY 10113 www.nyqbooks.org Edition Copyright 2010 by Barry Wallenstein, the copyright for individual works remains with the individual authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author. First Edition Set in New Baskerville Layout by Raymond P. Hammond Cover Design by Natalie Sousa Cover Photo by Layle Silbert Library of Congress Control Number: 2010936317 ISBN: 978-1-935520-12-2
Contents Preface by Barry Wallenstein / ix Introduction by Donald Lev / 13 Some Thoughts on the Life and Work of Enid Dame 1. Laurence Carr Hearing Enid Dame / 26 2. Patricia Eakins Enid Dame and Her Grip on God / 28 3. Phillis Gershator Who s Not Ready, Holler I: A Review of an Unpublished Novel by Enid Dame / 31 4. Dimitri Kalantzis The Queen of Brighton Beach / 34 5. Burt Kimmelman Enid Dame s Householdry / 37 6. Careufel de Lamière Remembering Enid / 50 7. Linda Lerner On Enid Dame / 52 8. Patricia Markert Enid Dame s Voice / 55 9. D. H. Melhem Enid Dame s Legacy, from Enid Dame Tribute, March 21, 2004, CedarTavern / 59 10. Alicia Ostriker Enid Dame: Midrashic Prophet / 63 11. Judith P. Saunders Enid Dame and the Hudson River Valley / 70 12. Two brief testimonies: Susan Sindall and Harry Smith / 76 13. Maxine Susman Enid: In Remembrance / 77 14. Karen Swenson a brief testimony / 83 15. Madeline Tiger Bless This Garden, A Review of Stone Shekhina, Poems by Enid Dame / 84 16. Martin Tucker There Is Nothing Like an Enid Dame / 94 vi
Appendix 1: A Selection of Enid s Poems Chagall Exhibit, 1996 / 99 Mike Gold and the Classics / 101 Lilith, I Don t Cut My Grass / 103 The Woman Who Was Water / 105 Appendix 2: A Selection of Poems to Enid Russian Snow in Brooklyn by David Gershator / 109 Poetry Teacher by Roberta Gould / 111 Bat Mitzvah Portion Noah by Walter Hess / 112 A Little Something for Enid by Bob Holman / 114 Enid by Judith Lechner / 115 Poem for Enid Dame by Ellen Aug Lytle / 116 Epithalamion for Enid and Don by D. H. Melhem / 117 You Enid Dame With Your Cloud of Beautiful Hair and your Kindness by Constance Norgren / 118 For Enid Dame by Ed Sanders / 120 A Cup for Enid by Cheryl A. Rice / 122 Lilith Mourns by Matthew J. Spireng / 123 For Enid Dame, Poet by Nikki Stiller / 124 Enid Dame by Yerra Sugarman / 127 Sestinas of the City Cluttered with Roses by Madeline Tiger / 129 Enid by Janine Pommy Vega / 131 Sparkle Like Diamonds, A Review by Carletta Joy Walker / 133 Without Tears for Enid by Barry Wallenstein / 136 vii
Appendix 3: Two Essays by Enid Dame I May Be a Bit of a Jew : What Contemporary Jewish American Poets Learned from Allen Ginsberg and Sylvia Plath / 139 Art as Midrash: Some Notes on the Way to a Discussion / 150 Appendix 4: Selected List of Enid s Publications An Enid Dame Bibliography / 163 Contributor Notes / 165 Acknowledgments / 177 viii
Preface by Barry Wallenstein This is not the first gathering of songs of love and admiration dedicated to Enid Dame. A year after she died in 2003, poems, tribute essays, and personal memories appeared throughout the 2004 [# 50], issue of Home Planet News, the journal she founded and edited along with her life s partner and husband, Donald Lev. This new collection, For Enid with Love, was conceived in 2007 by Donald Lev with the assistance of the poet D. H. Melhem. Herein are essays of personal remembrance, individual appreciations of her artistry, poems written in her memory, and some written especially for the occasion of this book. A good number of these pieces were written by people who never met Enid but were moved by her art and the story of her life. This is actually a festschrift, a festival of writings, which the dictionary defines as a volume for presentation to a well-known scholar on the occasion of her attaining a certain age, pinnacle of her career, retirement. Enid achieved her pinnacle and retired too soon. Although she did teach, and some of the testimony here is by colleagues who praise her teaching, she was other than a well-known scholar. But as she was a student and poet of midrash, she lived her scholarship and made the most moving, most humane art out of her deeply felt learning. While collecting the materials for this tribute book, it has been supremely rewarding to get to know better this writer, poet, and teacher. I met Enid when she was a student at CCNY and attending one of the early Annual Spring Poetry Festivals. Enid read her poems at this event and returned each spring to participate as did (and does) Donald. Her inimitable voice and warm-spirited humor radiated in her poems and her life. This feeling of being moved by her presence and delightfully informed by her life s work, is revisited and revealed in each of the contributions here. The cumulative effect of this gathering of encomiums should bring Enid back alive as only language and art can do. ix Edition Copyright 2010 by Barry Wallenstein
In many ways, her poetry is about the life cycle, including of course endings. Midway in her first book Between Revolutions (1977), the poem Trouble with Endings begins: I have/ trouble with endings./ Remember the time/ we fought about/ the working class? Well, Enid was fiercely engaged all the way through, as an artist and as a political activist, and she struggled against the terrible reality, prefigured in this poem near its close The ending/ we weren t prepared for/ swallows us whole. The poem closes with a rhetorical question, What will we become/ in the ocean s belly? All the thoughts, observations, and feelings present in this collection attest to what Enid Dame has become a living presence in lives of those who discover her work, as much as in the minds and hearts of those who knew her. Alicia Ostriker, who expresses this thought best in the conclusion of her essay, Enid Dame: Midrashic Prophet : Her midrashic writing is a tree of life sprouting through disasters. Her writing as a whole is sharply political without being simple-minded, passionate and humane without sacrificing playfulness. May her work continue to ripple out her lefty spirit of truth and compassion and comedy and justice and life. May it live and be healthy. x Edition Copyright 2010 by Barry Wallenstein