When Robert died in 1998 at the age of eighty four (after a long bout with cancer), I was surprised to learn that he had left me the copyrights to his poems and translations. Perhaps surprised is not the right word. Robert was a gay, single man who embraced his preference early in life and never wavered from his path. He had no children (except for his cats) and, with my background in publishing, it made sense that I was his literary heir. Truth be told, I was delighted, honored, overwhelmed, and humbled by the awesome responsibility of Robert's legacy.
For the past five years a large part of my life has been devoted to bringing Robert's work to the attention of an American audience. In this endeavor I have been aided by an international tag team: Robert's literary executor in Israel, Gabriel Levin; Anthony Rudolf, publisher of Menard Press in London; and New York-based poet, Edward Field, who first met Robert in 1948 on a converted troop ship going to Paris.
Happily, I found a New York publisher for a collection of Robert's poems entitled Dancing With a Tiger: Poems 1941-1998, edited by Edward Field/ Spuyten Duyvil Press, run by New York-based poet Tod Thilleman. Published in 2003, it was the first volume of Robert's work to be published in the United States since 1964. In January of 2003, Garrison Keillor read three of his poems on his Writer's Almanac show on National Public Radio. March 2003, I saw the publication of five poems from Dancing With a Tiger in Poetry Magazine, which first published Robert's work back in the 1930s.
Robert's gift for poetry has found expression in a new generation of my family. My daughter Maya, now twenty four, has been writing poetry for several years. Several years ago her work appeared alongside the poetry of her great-uncle in the literary website, The Drunken Boat. I am only sorry that Robert never got to read her poems. During the same time period, my mother (now eighty three) starting taking writing courses at Queens College. She's writing poetry again. So, the cycle is repeating once more.
