Alter Esselin

1969 recording of Alter Esselin reading his poem in Yiddish, "Elegy for a Tree".

1969 recording of Alter Esselin reading his poem in English, "Elegy for a Tree".

1969 recording of Alter Esselin reading his poem "Consolation Comes Late"

1969 recording of Alter Esselin recalling his life as a poet. Alter Esselin (, born Orkeh Serebrenik) was a Jewish-American poet who wrote in the Yiddish language. He was born in Chernihiv, in the Chernigov Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) on April 23, 1889, and died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on November 22, 1974. In fifty years of his life, he wrote and had published several hundred poems in such publications as , , Kundus, The or (The Future) and many others.

His work is discussed in Sol Liptzin's A History of Yiddish Literature and is included in America in Yiddishen Vort.

Three books of his poetry were published. The first was Knoytn (Candlewicks) in 1927; The second, (Under the Yoke), in 1936, and the third, (Songs of a Hermit) in 1954 for which The Jewish Book Council gave him The Harry Kovner Award as the best collection of Yiddish poetry of the year, in 1955.

Esselin's long poem "Proletarier" was published in the July 12, 1924, issue of the left wing newspaper Morgen Freiheit and in the January 19, 1925, issue the editor, Moissaye Joseph Olgin, announced that Esselin's poem had been awarded the first place prize in the Freiheit's international competition. entitled "dos vort is lebedik (the Word is Alive)" in which he praised Esselin's unique poetic voice, a bittersweet voice that Rapaport says emerged from his effort to overcome suffering.

In October, 1969, Esselin appeared on "The People of the Book," a weekly television program devoted to Jewish culture on WTMJ, Milwaukee. Please see the sidebar for audio excerpts from the program, with Esselin reading both Yiddish and English versions of his poem "Elegy for a Tree". Also included is a reading of his poem, "Consolation Comes Late" and an audio excerpt of Esselin recalling his life as a poet.

Biography

Esselin's formal education came to an end with the death of his father when he was ten, an event that had a lifelong effect. His mother, left with four small children to rear, reluctantly sent Orkeh, the eldest, out to work—to serve a five-year apprenticeship to a carpenter, an occupation that he followed the rest of his life.

Due to his lack of schooling, he became a passionate autodidact—a passion that was enhanced by his dedication to the writing of poetry.

Esselin came to the US as a boy of fifteen in 1904, but the uncle who was expected to be his sponsor (his mother's brother) had died while Esselin was in transit, and the other relatives were unsympathetic. He joined the Carpenter's Union under the name Artur (in honor of Artur Rubenstein, the pianist) and the surname Solomon (the wisest man). Later, when he began writing poetry, he adopted the name Alter Esselin. (Alter—the old one) in following the custom among Ashkenazi Jews of renaming the eldest surviving son in event of a father's early demise as a way of asking the Angel of Death not to bother the family again; and Esselin, using the consonants in Solomon. (The Jewish way). When the second poem appeared in the paper, it was accompanied by a boxed notice from the editor that said that he regarded Esselin's poetry as the emergence of a new literary star, and that he hoped the star would shine for a long time. Esselin has one of his most moving poems, (Gracious Angel), dedicated to his mentor Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, in which he declares that the spirit of a great poet is not stilled, because there is a bridge—his poetry—over which the gracious angel is able to bring the poet's spirit back to life.

On April 22, 1969, The Forward (Forverts) published an article by Yitzok Perlov "In Celebration of the Eightieth Birthday of Alter Esselin" which detailed the events of his career and evoked the eloquent bittersweet tone of his poetry.

Earlier in 1969, Jacob Glatstein in Der Tag Yiddish Journal, praised the publication of the translations into English—the collaboration of Esselin with his son, Joseph—in book form, as a worthy tribute to Esselin's accomplishments.

All through Esselin's lifetime his work has been favorably reviewed by major Yiddish critics, but he is remembered after his death as well. Thirty years after his death, Mikhail Krutikov wrote a retrospective article in The Forward (Forverts) going over Esselin's life and celebrating his unique poetic voice.

Esselin's Yiddish poetry has been translated into English both by his son, Joseph,

The Alter Esselin Archive is in the Judaica Section of Harvard University's Widener Library.