Shirley Kaufman Daleski (June 5, 1923 in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

- September 25, 2016 in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

) was an American-Israeli

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

and translator.

Life

Her parents immigrated from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. She grew up in Seattle and graduated from James A. Garfield High School in 1940 and from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

in 1944, and in 1946 she married Dr. Bernard Kaufman, Jr. They had three daughters: Sharon (b. 1948), Joan (b. 1950) and Deborah (b. 1955). She studied at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different ...

with

Jack Gilbert Jack Gilbert (February 18, 1925 – November 13, 2012) was an American poet. Gilbert was acquainted with Jack Spicer and Allen Ginsberg, both prominent figureheads of the Beat Movement, but is not considered a Beat Poet; he described himself as ...

. She married Hillel Matthew Daleski and immigrated to

Jerusalem, Israel Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

in 1973. Her daughter, poet and playwright Debra Kaufman, made a short film about her poem "Ezekiel's Wheels". Her work has appeared in ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Boston. ...

'', '' Harper's'', ''

The American Poetry Review ''The American Poetry Review'' (''APR'') is an American poetry magazine printed every other month on tabloid-sized newsprint. It was founded in 1972 by Stephen Berg and Stephen Parker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The magazine's editor is Elizabet ...

'', and ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. She died from Alzheimer's disease at the age of 93.

Awards

* 1979 NEA Fellowship * 1989 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award of the

Poetry Society of America The Poetry Society of America is a literary organization founded in 1910 by poets, editors, and artists. It is the oldest poetry organization in the United States. Past members of the society have included such renowned poets as Witter Bynner, Ro ...

* 1990/1991

Shelley Memorial Award The Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, was established by the will of Mary P. Sears, and named after the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The prize is given to a living American poet selected with reference to genius and need, and is ...

Works

Poetry

"Cyclamen"; "The Last Threshold", ''Poets Against War''

* * * * * * second edition, 1979 * Hebrew translation by Dan Pagis, Tel Aviv: 1980 * * * * * Me-Hayyim le-Hayyim Aherim (selected poems in Hebrew translated by Aharon Shabtai, Dan Miron and Dan Pagis). Jerusalem: 1995 * Un abri pour nostêtes (selected poems in French translated by Claude Vigée). Bilingual edition, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France: 2003 * *

Translations

* 2nd edition 1986 * * Scrolls of Fire, translated from the Hebrew of Abba Kovner. Tel Aviv: 1978 * * * *

Anthologies

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaufman, Shirley 1923 births 2016 deaths Garfield High School (Seattle) alumni Dutch–English translators Translators to English Israeli poets American people of Polish-Jewish descent American emigrants to Israel American women poets 20th-century translators 21st-century American women