Ode to the Dove: A Yiddish Poem

by Abraham Sutzkever, Zackary Sholem Berger (Translator), Liora Ostroff (Illustrator)

“The greatest poet of the Holocaust” – The New York Times

Avrom Sutzkever (1913-2010) was an acclaimed Yiddish poet, a freedom fighter, and a witness in the Nuremberg trials. His epic poem Ode to the Dove is now available in English for the first time in its entirety, translated by Zackary Sholem Berger, with illustrations by Liora Ostroff.

Sutzkever’s visionary imagery moves from the past to the future, from Dante to Chagall, from the streets that stone themselves to the Reed Sea. He seeks the dove compelling him to write, wishing to feed her silver syllables. But what happens at the end of world-spanning travels, when the poet and the dove finally meet?

"Sutzkever’s definitive statement on the creative imperative in the shadow of catastrophe and on the transcendent power of the Yiddish word has been artfully translated by Zackary Sholem Berger. Liora Ostroff’s illustrations make this an elegant volume for lovers of poetry."

—Justin Cammy, translator of Sutzkever, From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony, and Professor of World Literatures, Smith College

42 pages, Paperback

Published January 27, 2023

About the author

Abraham (Avrom) Sutzkever was one of the tiny percentage of creative artists who lived through and survived the devastation. He was one of fewer still who lived through it as a writer, producing between 1941 and 1945 some of his finest poems. The works of those years, written not in retrospect, and not at a distance, but during the daily wretchedness of ghetto life and under constant threat of death, constitute an exceptional instance in the history of art. Sutzkever knew that the writing of Yiddish verse could satisfy the demands of art. His ghetto poems are the more significant because they are not only expressions of the will to resist, but in their subtlety and power, obdurate proofs of survival in a body of work that stands beyond circumstance and time.
Ruth R. Wisse

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Reviews

[Joshua Calandrella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent translation, fabulous poem, and a handy introduction to Sutzkever's work. I enjoyed the complimentary illustrations. Poetry and visual art are a match made in heaven.