Anna Margolin

{{Short description|American writer (1887–1952)}} {{Use American English|date=May 2023}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2023}} {{Infobox writer  | name = Anna Margolin | image = | imagesize = 200px | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Rosa Harning Lebensboym | birth_date = {{birth year|1887}} | birth_place = Brest, Russian Empire (now Brest, Belarus) | death_date = {{death year and age|1952|1887}} | death_place = New York City, U.S. | occupation = Poet | nationality = American | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = Di Yunge | notableworks = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | website = | portaldisp = | language = Yiddish }}

'''Rosa Harning Lebensboym''' (1887–1952), known by her pen name '''Anna Margolin''' ({{langx|yi|אַננאַ מאַרגאָלין}}), was an American Yiddish language writer of Jewish descent. She wrote journalism, criticism, and fiction, but is by far the best known for her poetry.

==Biography== Born in Brest, then part of the Russian Empire, she was educated up to secondary school level, where she studied Hebrew.<ref>{{cite web | last = Zhitnitski | first = L. | author-link = | author2 = Jenni Buch|author3=Dr. Samuel Chani | title = Jewish Brest – its Writers and Cultural figures | date = 2006-11-06 | url = http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/brest/bre068.html | accessdate = 2007-04-01 }}</ref> She first went to New York in 1906, and permanently settled there in 1913. Most of her poetry was written there.<ref>{{cite web |title=Drunk from the Bitter Truth - Summary |url=http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61173 |accessdate=2007-04-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928141301/http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61173 |archivedate=2007-09-28 }}</ref> Margolin was associated with both the Di Yunge and ‘introspectivist’ groups in the Yiddish poetry scene at the time, but her poetry is uniquely her own.<ref> {{cite web | title = Modern Yiddish literature > Yiddish women writers | date = 2006-11-06 | url = http://p2.www.britannica.com/eb/article-234162/Yiddish-literature#799615.hook | accessdate = 2007-04-01 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} </ref>

In her early years in New York City Margolin joined the editorial staff of the liberal Yiddish daily ''Der Tog'' (The Day; founded 1914). Under her real name, she edited a section entitled "In der froyen velt" (In the women's world); and also wrote journalistic articles under various pseudonyms, including "Sofia Brandt," and – more often, in the mid 1920s – "Clara Levin."<ref>Novershtern, Abraham. "'Who Would Have Believed That a Bronze Statue Can Weep': The Poetry of Anna Margolin." ''Prooftexts'' 10.3 (September 1990): 435-467; here: 435.</ref><ref>Brenner, Naomi. "Slippery Selves: Rachel Bluvstein and Anna Margolin in Poetry and in Public." ''Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues'' No. 19 (Spring 2010): 100-133; here: 112</ref> During the same period, she wrote prose short stories, often pseudoymously, which have received less critical attention than her poetry.

Though her reputation rests mainly on the single volume of poems she published in her lifetime, ''Lider'' ('Poems', 1929), a posthumous collection, ''Drunk from the Bitter Truth'', including English translations, has also been published. One reviewer described her work as "sensual, jarring, plainspoken, and hard, the record of a soul in direct contact with the streets of 1920s New York".<ref>{{cite web | last = Nordel | first = J. D. | title = Poetry Microreviews | url = http://bostonreview.net/BR31.5/microreviews.html | accessdate = 2008-12-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081014053130/http://bostonreview.net/BR31.5/microreviews.html | archive-date = 2008-10-14 | url-status = dead }}</ref> In 2022, a collection of four or her short stories was translated as ''During Sleepless Nights and Other Stories'' by Daniel Kennedy with Farlag Press.

== Bibliography == '''Poetry''' * ''[https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/yiddish-books/spb-nybc208331/margolin-anna-lider Lider]''. <nowiki>[Poems]</nowiki> (1929) * ''Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin''. Translated Shirley Kumove. (SUNY, 2005) {{ISBN|0-7914-6579-9}} <small>[ Review]</small> '''Prose''' * ''During Sleepless Nights and Other Stories''. Translated Daniel Kennedy. (Farlag Press, 2022) {{ISBN|0-7475-3269-9}}

== References == {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

== External links == {{Wikiquote}} * [https://zackarysholemberger.blogspot.com/2005/05/bridge-anna-margolin-from-yiddish-z.html The Bridge] Short poem in translation * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927161428/http://www.ibiblio.net/pub/academic/languages/yiddish/mendele/vol1.010 A Reading of Anna Margolin's "Mit halb farmakhte oygn"] * {{in lang|yi}} [https://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/iiddica/Khronologye/y_20yh/Margolin/mar_lidr.html 2 poems] * {{in lang|yi}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20110711021247/http://yiddish.forward.com/node/929 Article in ''Forverts''] * [http://www.yivoarchives.org/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=33528&top=1 Anna Margolin papers]. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, RG 1166. * [https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/margolin-anna Jewish Women's Archive page]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Margolin, Anna}} Category:1887 births Category:1952 deaths Category:People from Brestsky Uyezd Category:Jews from the Russian Empire Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Category:Jewish American poets Category:Yiddish-language American poets Category:Jewish American women writers Category:20th-century American poets Category:20th-century American women poets