Gabriel Preil


Gabriel Preil was a modern Hebrew poet active in the United States, who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish. He was the last of the Haskala poets. Preil translated Robert Frost and Walt Whitman into Hebrew.

Biography

Gabriel Preil was born in Tartu, Livonia, Russian Empire in 1911, but was raised in Krakės, Kovno until his father died. He then moved with his mother to the United States in 1922. Though primarily influenced by Yiddish poets of the Inzikh movement, Preil's influence extends to younger Israeli poets, and Israelis were his primary audience. Preil lived with his mother and step-father in the Bronx, NY, until their deaths. In 1975, he received on honorary Doctorate of Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College. Preil died in Jerusalem on June 5, 1993 while visiting on a book tour.

Poems

Many of Preil's poems focus on New York city, Maine, and his grandfather, a rabbi, who lived in Lithuania and wrote for Hamelitz. One of his poems is dedicated to the Israeli poet Leah Goldberg: "Leah's Absence". Another references Abraham Mapu; others, Jacob Glatstein and Mendele Mocher Sforim.
Feldman writes of Preil's Yiddish and American atmosphere, "One could say that Preil's life and art are a manifestation of two diametrically opposite movements: His physical biography led him further away from Israeli soil, but, through his artistic activity, he tenaciously bridged the distance and successfully approached the contemporary sources of his poetic medium. In order to do this, he had to cross two language barriers: Yiddish, his European mother tongue, which continued to be the language spoken at home throughout his life, and English, the language he acquired in his new home-country and which soon became a rich literary source for young Preil, the avid reader."
The following is a translation of a Preil poem that appeared in Hebrew in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Achronoth in 1981:
like feathers
years plucked like feathers
but I won't exaggerate:
the romantic houses
didn't lose
the intoxicating image from hovering
were only made
more balanced
cool headed thinkers
in the course of a lengthy conversation
without superfluous surprises
you're not piping the flute
of praises
the modern painting
slides into old hues
the modern structure
designs the old form
and you yourself –
a man pallid as paper
naked as snow
breathing very summerly