Richard J. Fein is Professor Emeritus of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz and the author, editor, and translator of many books, including With Everything We've Got: A Personal Anthology of Yiddish Poetry.

• Note on Selection and ArrangementNote on TranslationAcknowledgmentsIntroductionJustin CammyFrom Collected Poems, Volume One (1963) SiberiaIn the VillageAt DawnRecognitionLike a Sleigh in Its Wistful RingingFiery PeltIn a Siberian ForestTo My FatherIrtyshSnowmanSiberian SpringKyrgyzMy Friend TshanguriBy a BonfireNorth StarA HaystackAnt NestPoems to a SleepwalkerTwo BulletsIn the CellI Lie in a CoffinFrom a Lost PoemEvery Hour, Every DayThe BurialTo the Thin Vein on My HeadThe Woman of Marble in Père LachaiseFrom Collected Poems, Volume Two (1963) Deer by the Red SeaDenkmol nokh a ferdBlackberriesTrained AnimalsA Poem without a Name[Gather me...]From Square Letters and Magical Signs (1968) When the River Overran Its BanksTo LeivickPoem without a NameFrom Ripe Faces (1970) PortraitFirefightersFrom The Fiddle Rose (1974) Granite WingsFrom Both Ends of the WorldThe Full PomegranateCollected TreasuresWonderAlto Cellos[Here I am fated to see...]From Twin Brother (1986) [Who will last...][Good morning, woodpecker...][Fate—hairy dog...][Who blessed me...][Gone, the green...][Draw a thread...][I remember Pasternak...][And if I go...][It belongs to me...][Death redeems death...][A woman points...][My unborn heir...][Memory of three...][Good morning, young...][When your words...]["How come you don't mention..."][A distant morning's...][Not even the least...][Ever since my pious mother...][Tell me, what did you want...][I am your abyss...][I read texts...][I still owe you...][The murmur-hieroglyphics...][Where are they...][Not one, not two...]From In Somewhere-Night of Black HoneyFrom The Heir of Rain (1992) [Two-legged grasses...]Like Sun through a CrevicePoem about NothingI Seek Those Few People Who to This Day Remember My Mother[Soon it will happen!]From Shaken Walls (1996) [Just before his bar mitzvah...][A special announcement...][It sometimes seems to me...][All that is past...][I know that nothing remains...][I regret that I was born...]Sporadic visitant... Richard J. Fein AfterwordNotes

"…carefully curated and beautifully illustrated … The volume exemplifies Fein's engagement with Sutzkever's poetry, which serves as an inspiration for his own poetic creativity." — H-Net Reviews (H-Judaic)"…a rich and daring cross-section of Sutzkever's verse … Fein crafts a portrait of Sutzkever neither as a historical relic nor as a witness to catastrophe, but as an inexhaustibly accomplished creator of poetry, and a devoted imaginer of a lost world. This, one imagines, is what Sutzkever would have wanted." — Los Angeles Review of Books"A remarkable aspect of this volume is its breadth. It allows readers to note how Sutzkever's images transformed and reappeared over the course of his fifty-year career." — In Geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies"…represent[s] important contributions to the growth of a great, neglected poet's reputation in the English-speaking world…" — Times Literary Supplement"Richard Fein is among the best translators of Yiddish poetry into English—the best now, and, for that matter, among the best ever. He has a deep, inward sense of Yiddish poems, both intuitive and analytic, and a patient tenacity in burrowing into them. He also has what is still rarer, a beautifully fine ear for diction and rhythm; the translations are alive on the page, every word is necessary, every cadence has its music."The poems of Avrom Sutzkever were a challenge to him; he writes, candidly, 'they wanted me to find new powers in my English.' There is a special, precious audacity in accepting such a challenge, and Fein has indeed found the new powers the poems demanded." — Lawrence Rosenwald, Wellesley College"Avrom Sutzkever has no more loving translator than fellow poet Richard Fein. Even those who think they 'do not understand poetry' will be inspired by the poet who bore witness to the most dramatic points of modern Jewish experience and could transmit their power. Strength and spirit fuse in Sutzkever, wit and insight, moral confidence and grace. Our thanks to the translator and to Justin Cammy's introduction for bringing this Jewish cultural landmark to English readers." — Ruth R. Wisse, author of No Joke: Making Jewish Humor"Richard Fein's translations strive for the impossible acrobatics of Sutzkever's writing, from the rare alchemy of his striking metaphors to a postwar longing for poetic redemption in the face of destruction. To capture just an echo of Sutzkever's singular voice would be an achievement. This collection, simultaneously careful and daring in its choices, amplifies that echo to the maximum that the English language would allow." — Saul Noam Zaritt, Harvard University"In dialogue with Avrom Sutzkever, Richard Fein offers us a vibrant selection of the poet's works in a beautiful facing-page translation. Sutzkever's superbly inventive Yiddish imagery and wordcraft inspired Fein, the poet-translator, to dynamically engage both Yiddish and English, with remarkable and moving results." — Ellen Kellman, Brandeis University