In the 1950s, Menashe returned to New York where, except for frequent sojourns in
England and
Ireland, he lived most of his life.[6] In 1961, he garnered the blessing of the British poet
Kathleen Raine who arranged for his first book, The Many Named Beloved, to be published by
Victor Gollancz in London.[5] Menashe's short, intense, spiritual poems, which canvass existential dilemmas and use implication and wordplay as a way of deepening the linguistic force of his words, gained wide renown in Britain from reviewers such as
Donald Davie,[7] who became one of Menashe's most committed backers. He was later included in the
Penguin Modern Poets series.
In 2004 he became the first poet honored with the "Neglected Masters Award"[4] given by
Poetry magazine and the
Poetry Foundation.[4] The award was also to include a book to be published by the
Library of America, which turned out to be a "Selected Poems" edited by Ricks. This volume appeared in 2005 on the occasion of the poet's 80th birthday, and was widely reviewed. A revised edition, with ten additional poems, was published in 2008.
Bloodaxe Books in the UK published the volume (which also contained a DVD film about the poet's life and work) in 2009.[2]
Menashe was also a teacher and writing instructor. During the 1960s, he taught literature and poetry courses at
C. W. Post College. Previously, he taught at
Bard College.
Menashe died in his sleep in New York on August 22, 2011.[1][4]
Bibliography
The Many Named Beloved (1961)
No Jerusalem But This (1971)
Fringe of Fire (1973)
To Open (1974)
Collected Poems (1986)
Penguin Modern Poets, vol. 7 of the 2nd series (what 1996). Poems by Donald Davie, Samuel Menashe, and Allen Curnow.
The Shrine Whose Shape I Am: The Collected Poetry of Samuel Menashe (2020), Ed. By Bhisham Bherwani and
Nicholas Birns, foreword by
Stephanie Burt, afterword by
Dana Gioia.[8]
^
abWilliam Grimes (23 August 2011).
"Samuel Menashe, New York Poet of Short Verse, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 August 2013. Samuel Menashe, a Greenwich Village poet whose jewel-like, gnomic short verse won him an ardent following in Britain and belated recognition in the United States when the Poetry Foundation gave him its first Neglected Masters Award in 2004, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 85. ...