POETRY MONDAY: March 7, 2015
Walter Hess
We’re proud to introduce Walter Hess, whose strong personal history is the source of much of his poetry – and what makes it so compelling.
He was born in Germany in 1931. Those two facts alone suggest what was to come, and what didn’t. Subsequent to Kristall Nacht and his father’s relatively brief incarceration in Dachau, his family managed to emigrate
in 1939, first to Ecuador and then, in 1940, to the U.S., where they settled in upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights. He was educated entirely in New York City public schools, receiving a B.A. in history from CCNY in 1952 and returning years later, to study for and receive an M.A. from their graduate writing program.
A retired documentary film editor, he collaborated on a number of films that won major awards, including two Peabodys and three Emmys. He also wrote a memoir, excerpts from which have appeared in Jewish Currents and in Alumnus, the CCNY alumni magazine. In 2010 his poetry collection, Jew’s Harp, was published by Pleasure Boat Press. He has also had poems in such journals as The American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Mima’ Amakim and The New Vilna Review, as well as in the anthology Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust. His translations from the German of the poet Hans Sahl have appeared in Metamorphosis.
In 2001 he was awarded a prize from the Academy of American Poets and a cash award from the Nyman Foundation for a selection from his memoir.
Below are three poems by Walter Hess.
Irene Willis,
Poetry Editor
Survivor
It took some time
to look at all those pictures,
the black and white ones,
to hear those stories once again;
heads nodding toward
her and him;
that book of shadows
when we were kids
who knew enough
to fill in that which happened;
knew to perfection that desire,
no, the need to stay apart,
away from them,
from that which happened
endlessly to those you loved
but not to you.
from his collection, Jew’s Harp (New York: Pleasure Boat Studio,2010)
Sentences
I have seen under clouds
a grandfather holding a Thorah
in the door of a burning synagogue.
I have seen under the sun
my grandfather being beaten
till the bones broke and the blood ran.
I have seen under the sun
my father taken by his friend
to a concentration camp
I have seen under the sun
my mother feed prisoners
working on a hot street.
I have seen under the sun
electric wires making soft loops
outside the window of a rushing train.
I have seen under the sun
my father with the only shofar
in Ecuador.
I therefore try
but it’s hard to forget
Germany.
Listening
I’m sitting at my desk,
listening to Billie Holliday,
reading Jacov Lind and
drinking the Manhattan
Hannah just made.
“This year’s crop of kisses…”
“Why was I born, why am I living…”
Goodman’s a sideman on that cut.
Rain is falling – everything is
Dripping with blood, sings
Jakov Lind.
“Mean to me,” Sings Billie,
In all its several meanings.
“Singing the blues and sighing”,
And “I’ll never be the same”.
There’s Buck Clayton,
Lester Young, Teddy Wilson…
I call my son, “listen
You can hear Billie….”
He says “Yes,”
He says, “Yes I’ve been listening
for a very long time.
and I’m very grateful for her genius.”
Condescending?
Still……but I’m Happy.