Interview
with Susan Rosenberg
...and
there it was! In print!
This month
it is my pleasure to introduce to you Susan Rosenberg,
the 85 year old indefatigable Secretary of the Voices
Israel group of poets writing in English in Israel. Each
year in June she hosts a workshop in her home for Voices
Israel members and faithfully attends the monthly
meetings in Haifa, where she lives. SUSAN’S STORY has
been serialized on the Cyclamens and Swords website:
www.cyclamensandswords.com;
the last three chapters have been published in our
Spring edition now on line.
Question: When did you begin to
write poetry and what prompted you to write?
Answer: I began writing when I was in the third grade.
Our teacher loved poetry and used to read it to us. She
also encouraged us to write poems. One of my poems
appeared in the school literary magazine. It went like
this:
Bashfulness
Bashfulness
is a terrible thing
when people
say to me,
"hello, little girl,
what is your name?"
and then
I hang my head
ashamed
I twiddle my fingers
I feel so dumb
I don't know what to say
and then I
look up and say,
"my name is Susan"
and then I
look down
at my feet again.
...and there
it was! In print! With my name, "Susan Stern third
grade" written at the bottom. I was so excited..and
that's when I knew I wanted to be a poet.
Question: What inspires your
poetry?
Answer: Keeping a diary has been a compulsion of mine
since 1936. It is attached to a desire to catch the
small moments of my life-time. It has something to do
with wanting to live forever and many of my poems begin
after I re-read a diary entry.
Question: Which forms do you
prefer? Why?
Answer: I prefer free verse. Probably because I'm lazy
and rhyme schemes put a constraint on me that I keep
wanting to throw off.
Question: Who is your favorite
poet?
Answer: As I struggle to reply to this question, I
realize how fickle I have been through the years. My
favorite poets have varied from Shelley and Keats to
Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas, Yevtushenko, Ogden Nash, ee
cummings, etc. Today, my favorite poet is Billy Collins!
Question: Which Billy Collins poems did you like the
best?
Answer: To
name a few of many: "Another Reason Why I don't Keep A
Gun In The House", "Advice To Writers", "The Rival
Poet", "Introduction To Poetry", "I Chop Some Parsley
While Listening To Art Blakey's Version of 'Three Blind
Mice'; "Afternoon With Irish Cows", "November"....
It's hard to stop writing the list but the above will
give you an idea.
The following is a poem I wrote and did not send to
Billy Collins:
"You speak poetry
I do not
I hear your words
cannot reply
awe and admiration
tie my tongue"...
Question: Where have you been
published?
Answer: In almost every VOICES-ISRAEL Anthology
since 1978, Occasionally on the VOICES Poetry Page, in
Ibbetson Press, Rattle Magazine, Mediterrane
Magazine (poems about Haifa), in All Our
Lives, an Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Writing
edited by Sarah Shapiro published by Targum Press,
The Writer's Journal, Collection of Jewish Women's
Writings - May, 2007, in Seven Gates
magazine 1995. In ten issues of Binah Magazine,
one of my poems has appeared...(the first ever to pay me
for my poems). I was also interviewed by Leah Kotkes
after my hip surgery and that article (for which I got
paid) appeared in Binah Magazine. My
story, "A Reform Jew From Elkins Park" was published in
an Anthology published by Judaica Press. And "Susan's
Story", an attempt to trace my religious growth and
insights, has been serialized by Cyclamens and Swords
Publishing on their website
www.cyclamensandswords.com.
In 2005 and 2007, I won Honorable Mention in the
International Reuben Rose Poetry Competition. I have
self-published two volumes of my poems. A Pledge
To Forever and After All These Years.
Question: What is the biggest
change you have seen Voices Israel all these years you
have been a member?
Answer:
I joined VOICES-ISRAEL in 1973. Our non-profit
organization is an opened membership to all writers and
readers of English poetry. Members are from diverse
background, cultures, and religions, including Jewish,
Christian, Druze, Muslim and Bahai residing in Israel
and abroad. The original goals stay as they were, that
is, to encourage writers of English poetry and to offer
them an outlet for their work. Since I joined, the
organization has grown in several respects. It has
reached out to poets abroad as well as to poets in
Israel resulting in a cross-pollination of influences.
Our membership has grown in numbers, and contributors to
the VOICES ISRAEL ANNUAL ANTHOLOGY has increased
enormously so that from the early publications of rather
slim paper back volumes, there has been a great
improvement in the content and quantity of poems as well
as the quality of the book itself. My poetry-writing
always felt like some sort of secret vice. For years,
what I wrote was hidden in my closet unseen by anyone.
When my family and I made Aliyah (immigrated) from
America in 1973, there was, quite naturally, more need
than ever to write out my experiences, fears,
discoveries, joys of a new landscape, emotions, and so
forth. Happily, I discovered the channel through which I
could share with others when I learned about VOICES
ISRAEL and could, at last, hear my own voice.
Question: With sixteen
grandchildren, have any others followed in your poetic
footsteps?
Answer:
One of my five children is a very fine poet. One has
written beautiful poetry but considers herself more of
an artist than poet.
Some of my grandchildren have written poetry...two, I
think, are secret poets.....From time to time I get to
see what they have written. As for our great
grandchildren, no signs yet.
Question: What direction do you
see poetry going with the younger generations in Israel?
Answer:
I really can't comment about the direction that poetry
is going among the younger generation of poets because
when I read poetry, I don't ask and don't know what the
age of the poet is. I've never been age conscious and
have always either liked or not liked, either related to
or not related, to individuals from children to old
people because of who they are and not because of their
age. I'm certain, therefore, that the poems of some
young people will be meaningful to me and speak to my
poetic sense and sensibilities and some, perhaps very
well thought of, will not strike me as good....or I will
not have understood them, etc. In some cases, I think,
we do speak a different language. I can not make a
sweeping generalization.
Question: Where do you live?
husband? children? photographs of the family, etc.
Answer: I live in Haifa, Israel. I have been a wife to
the same man, Dick (Richard) Rosenberg, for 65 years. We
had five children (one deceased), sixteen grandchildren
(one deceased), twenty-five great grandchildren (two
more on the way).
Question: How long have you
lived in Israel ? In which country were you born?
Answer: I was born in Atlantic City , New Jersey, U.S.A.
in 1924. I have lived in Israel
as a citizen since 1972 but lived here before that from
1949-1956, when my husband was brought here as a foreign
advisor. Since living here I have been active with many
volunteer groups and have served as secretary to
VOICES-ISRAEL for I forget how many years..but it was
sometime in the 80's, I think, when I took on this
gratifying volunteer job.
1. Susan with her
three oldest children taken in 1950.
2. Lighting
the Channuka candles with Susan's husband and some
of their great grandchildren.
3.
Susan and great grandson (Avinoam) praying.
4. Susan at a Poetry
Workshop in her home on June 30, 2009
Read Poems by Susan Rosenberg
The Books of Susan Rosenberg
