Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is the author of the new poetry collection Night Breaks in the Garret: Poems and Peregrinations. His other books include The Education of a Daffodil.
Q: How was the title of your new collection chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: Let’s take the two parts of the title separately. “Night Breaks” is, of course, a play on “Daybreak,” but here I was thinking of night having a dawn of its own, of the dawn of night with its strands, or ropes, of rest and unrest. And with that darkness comes risk, the danger of breaking. So the specter of breaking, or shattering, is also at work here.
The first part of the Yiddish/Hebrew title, Aloys-ha-layleh [עלות-הלילה/Alot-ha-lailah], transfers the form “aloys,” or “rising,” from the accepted term “Aloys ha-shakher,” [עלות-השחר/Alot ha-shahar] meaning daybreak, or the rising of the day, over to night. Instead of descending into darkness, a rising is invoked here, thereby exhorting the reader to rise into the night ... and into the garret itself.
If the first part of the book’s title works with time, the second part is concerned with space. The garret has always been a suggestive word for me, evoking the lair of the starving artist devoted to his art in solitude below the eaves.
While there’s much to critique in that somewhat romanticized trope and while I am not a starving artist and my home is not actually a garret, I found it useful to enter, to fully inhabit, and indeed to call upon, the word when reflecting on my home. A space apart, if not away, from the street and the polis; a space close(r) to the moon and stars. And indeed, a colleague and I have jokingly/seriously referred to my home space as the garret.
Q: How did you choose the order in which the poems and essays were presented in the collection?
A: As I discuss in my notes at the end of the book, I largely (though not entirely) eschewed the strictly chronological in this book. The beginnings and ends of the section were particularly important for setting a tone.
I felt that “Entreaty” would function well as an overture as it heralds one of the book’s key themes: differences in expectations and goals within a family paired with a persistence in attachments between members despite those differences.
“Glass Dreams” mines that lode further and functions as something of a bookend. “Fellow Travelers” is a crossing-over poem and seemed like a fitting bridge from the first to the second section. In between, the narrative poems “City of Sweets” and “Village Tableau, Far From the Parade,” with their explorations of desire and danger, worked well together.
The meditations "Polemic on Pallor and Parchment and “Activist's Retreat” both explore the relationship of action and words in the public sphere.
Section II begins on somber notes—the mourning of relationships, loved ones departed, and the insistence on making a way in the here and now (“M and M and the Queen Greet the S Queen,” “(Not Entirely) New World Rituals,” “Unanswered Questions Around the Endemic Bend,” and “Object Lessons/Treasure, Retained”).
And the last five poems of the book move towards, if not uplift exactly, then something close to it: a muted rapture in and appreciation of the everyday. So overall, consideration was given to whether the poems worked well next to each other and whether they helped build and sustain a poetic and emotional arc.
Unlike a novel, an autobiography, or arguably, a work of journalism or scholarship, a poetry collection has more latitude when it comes to the ordering of the text. Rather like a curator preparing an art exhibition that isn’t chronologically based, the poet can play with juxtaposition of color, shape, texture, sound, and numerous other elements.
So even as I worked with all the ordering themes and points elaborated above, I also felt a sense of freedom in the book’s curation.
Q: The writer Barbara Krasner said of the book, “True to this volume’s
‘poems and peregrination’ subtitle, Yermiyahu Ahron Taub invites us to accompany him on a lyrical journey of transitions, transformations, and translations.” What do you think of that description?
A: I think it's an apt description that gets to the heart of the book’s goals. Transition of the self from strict Orthodoxy to a life different from but still inspired by Orthodoxy. Also, a transition in identity that never was. Transformation from rupture to self-acceptance. Transformation from “stuck-ness” to cautious resilience.
The transformation of the world itself, through climate change, is also a key theme of the book. It was important for me to look outward, to balance explorations of the inner self with a depiction of the world around us.
And of course, translation: the usage of two languages, English and Yiddish, the resolve to bring both languages into conversation, despite the enormous graphic design challenges, was paramount.
Also, the alliteration of Barbara Krasner’s phrasing—transitions, transformations, and translations—replicates the alliteration, which, as Krasner notes in her blurb, is such a major feature of the book.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: I wanted the book to be based on, or characterized by, a radical candor coupled with a rigorous yet sensual use of language. While the book examines some difficult themes, I wanted the poet’s direct gaze, the fruits of those excavations, to provide a rewarding experience for the reader. Perhaps not immediately, but over time.
Much of this book was written during a 2023 residency at the Rockvale Writers’ Colony, a magical place in rural Tennessee. And yet a significant portion was also written before that.
This is my first poetry collection since The Education of a Daffodil: Prose Poems, which was released nine years ago in 2017. Some of the poems (“The Light at the Beginning of the Tunnel”) took some 30 years to come into being.
So I would reiterate here the oft-invoked adage “Trust your process.” This is something which I need to remind myself of rather frequently. Sometimes, it truly does take time to “bring pen to paper,” to bring words to life.
Allow yourself the interlude, or interludes, of focused introspection, the gestation of the decades … as well as the surprise of sudden inspiration. Art arrives when it is ready. You’ll know when that is. Be ready to receive and foster it, to provide welcome.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have two translation projects in the pipeline. One is a cache of correspondence between the Yiddish writers Blume Lempel (1907-1999) and Chava Rosenfarb (1923-2011) that I've co-translated with Ellen Cassedy, and the other is an autobiography by the folksinger and matriarch of a Yiddishist dynasty, Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (1893-1974).
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: This book is characterized by variety: variety of form (poem, micro-fiction, meditation, monologue, micro-essay, etc.), variety of styles (spare, baroque, etc.), and variety of language (English, Yiddish), a variety of voices.
I wanted this book to be about what happens when those disparate elements are brought together not necessarily to create a harmonious whole, but to chart, and perhaps forge, a kind of coordinated consonance, an equanimity hard-earned.
I'd like to conclude this Book Q&A on a note of gratitude. Gratitude to all the editors who gave these poems their first home and who continue to create space for literary creation.
Gratitude to Finishing Line Press for taking a chance on a multi-lingual, multi-script manuscript with big poems stretching over multiple pages and to the design team for creating such a beautiful book.
Gratitude to artist Joshua Meyer for allowing the use of one of his paintings as the cover art.
Gratitude to the readers who have read and will read this book and who have supported my work over the years. And gratitude to you, Deborah, for your interest and for this forum.
And congratulations to you, Deborah, on your new mystery novel, Everything She Most Admired!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Yermiyahu Ahron Taub.
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