Shirley Kaufman Explained

Shirley Kaufman
Birth Name:	Shirley Kaufman Daleski
Birth Date:	June 5, 1923
Birth Place:	Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Death Place:	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation:	Poet
Nationality:	American
Education:	James A. Garfield High School
Alma Mater:	San Francisco State University
Genre:	Poetry
Children:	3

Shirley Kaufman Daleski (June 5, 1923 in Seattle – September 25, 2016 in San Francisco) was an American-Israeli poet and translator.^[1]

Life

Her parents immigrated from Poland. She grew up in Seattle and graduated from James A. Garfield High School in 1940 and from the University of California, Los Angeles 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 with Jack Gilbert.

She married Hillel Matthew Daleski and immigrated to Jerusalem, Israel in 1973.

Her daughter, poet and playwright Debra Kaufman, made a short film about her poem "Ezekiel's Wheels".^[2]

Her work has appeared in Ploughshares,^[3] Harper's,^[4] The American Poetry Review,^[5] and The New Yorker.^[6]

She died from Alzheimer's disease at the age of 93.^[7]

Awards

• 1979 NEA Fellowship
• 1989 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award of the Poetry Society of America
• 1990/1991 Shelley Memorial Award

Works

Poetry

• "Cyclamen"; "The Last Threshold", Poets Against War
• "Milk", Poetry Foundation
• Book: Bread and Water . Winter 1990–1991 . Ploughshares.
• Book: The Temples of Khajuraho . Spring 1988 . Ploughshares.
• Book: After the Wars . Spring 1984 . Ploughshares.
• Book: The Floor Keeps Turning. registration. University of Pittsburgh Press. 1970. 9780822931904.
• Book: Gold Country. registration. University of Pittsburgh Press. 1973. 9780822932697.
• Book: Looking at Henry Moore's Elephant Skull Etchings in Jerusalem During the War. Greensboro, North Carolina. 1977. Unicorn Press. 978-0-87775-108-3. second edition, 1979
• Hebrew translation by Dan Pagis, Tel Aviv: 1980
• Book: From One Life to Another. University of Pittsburgh Press. 1979. 978-0-8229-5300-5. registration.
• Book: Claims. New York. 1984. The Sheep Meadow Press. 978-0-935296-53-2.
• Book: Rivers of Salt. Port Townsend, Washington. Copper Canyon Press. 1993. 978-1-55659-055-9.
• Book: Roots in the Air: New and Selected Poems. Port Townsend, Washington. 1996. Copper Canyon Press. 978-1-55659-055-9.
• 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
• Book: Threshold. Port Townsend, Washington. 2003. Copper Canyon Press. 978-1-55659-192-1.
• Book: Ezekiel's Wheels. Port Townsend, Washington. 2009. Copper Canyon Press. 978-1-55659-307-9.

Translations

• Book: My Little Sister. registration. Abba Kovner. London. 1971. 978-0-932440-20-4. 2nd edition 1986
• Book: A Canopy in the Desert. registration. Abba Kovner. University of Pittsburgh Press. 1973. 978-0-8229-5232-9.
• Scrolls of Fire, translated from the Hebrew of Abba Kovner. Tel Aviv: 1978
• Book: The Light of Lost Suns. Amir Gilboa. New York. 1979. Persea Books. 978-0-89255-037-1.
• Book: But What: Selected Poems of Judith Herzberg. Judith Herzberg. Oberlin, Ohio. 1988. Oberlin College Press. 978-0-932440-24-2.
• Book: The Flower of Anarchy: Selected Poems . Meir Wieselteir. Fall 2003. University of California Press. 978-0-520-23553-3.
• Book: Hebrew feminist poems from antiquity to the present: a bilingual anthology. registration. Shirley Kaufman . Galit Hasan-Rokem . Galit Hasan-Rokem . Tamar Hess . Feminist Press. 1999. 978-1-55861-224-2.

Anthologies

• Book: The Emperor of China. https://books.google.com/books?id=yeyJ_UMIlyYC&q=Shirley+Kaufman&pg=PA124. The Best American Poetry 2001. Robert Hass . David Lehman . Simon and Schuster. 2001. 978-0-7432-0384-5.

External links

• "A Conversation with Shirley Kaufman", Eve Grubin, Poetry Society of America
• News: Understated brilliance. Nov 2, 2006. SUZANNE SELENGUT. The Jerusalem Post.

Notes and References

1. Encyclopedia: Shirley Kaufman. Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Lois Miller Bar-Yaacov. 30 June 2009.
2. Poetry, film blend, thanks to filmmaker's mother. Oakland Tribune. Aug 7, 2007. Jennifer Modenessi. July 1, 2009. December 9, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20191209184115/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070807/ai_n19444306/?tag=content;col1. dead.
3. Web site: Read by Author | Ploughshares.
4. Web site: Massaccio's Expulsion—By Shirley Kaufman (Harper's Magazine). dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20111110133735/http://harpers.org/archive/1965/01/0014763. 2011-11-10.
5. Web site: APR Recent Issues . 2009-07-01 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090415211440/http://www.aprweb.org/issues/recent.shtml . 2009-04-15 .
6. Search : The New Yorker . . 2020-02-18 . 2012-10-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121014053437/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/shirley_kaufman/search?contributorName=shirley%20kaufman . dead .
7. News: Shirley Kaufman Daleski Obituary. October 2, 2016. December 21, 2016. SFGATE Obituaries.