Seligman Swartzman Gillis Sandman Joffe Yachad Lederman Fleishman

Olga Kirsch (1924–1997) was a South African and Israeli poet. Kirsch was born and brought up in Koppies in the Orange Free State. Her father had emigrated there from Lithuania and, though a Yiddish speaker, brought his daughter up to speak English. She nevertheless wrote in Afrikaans, publishing eight books of poetry in that language, as well as a volume of selected poems. Kirsch emigrated to Israel at the age of twenty-four, living there from 1948 until her death. In 1990 she published her first book of poetry in English. She continued to write in English, and was actively involved with the Israel Association of Writers in English. Though well-known as a poet in South Africa, she failed to achieve the same degree of fame in Israel or the English-speaking world. Her poetry was marked by meter and often by rhyme. In her youth she wrote mainly about the inhumanity of racism, and of her longing for Zion. As she matured, more personal themes became central. She wrote a series of sonnets dedicated to her husband, the mathematician Joseph Gillis. She wrote in mourning of her mother, and of her beloved granddaughter who died at nine years of age. Throughout her writing there are poems on the theme of nature, and the destruction of nature. An accomplished linguist, she translated her poetry from Afrikaans into English and Hebrew. Bibliography 1948: Mure van die Hart (Johannesburg: Afrikaanse pers boekhandel) 1972: Negentien Gedigte (Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau) 1976: Geil Gebied (Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau) 1978: Oorwinteraars in die Vreemde (Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau) 1982: Afskeide (Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau) 1983: Ruie tuin (Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau) 1990: The Book of Sitrya (Rehovot: O. Kirsch) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Kirsch http://www.litnet.co.za/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&cause_id=1270&news_id=82857 WIDOW Love out of books and films, most pleasures intellectual; days without laughter, silence like a strangler's hands. Time, once fought for, an enemy to be fought off. The easy rich companionship that needed nothing and nobody, gone. Hand to mouth days and nights, forgotten or remembered by those whose households are whole. No axis, no anchor, random ties. Nothing she'd have recognized as life.