Craft: Babette Deutsch

Babette Deutsch (1895-1982) was known as a critic and translator of Russian poetry, but she also wrote poetry and novels, as well as fiction and biographies for children. Her own poetry was praised by Louise Bogan (“You dazzle with your comprehension and presentation of mystery”), William Carlos Williams (“the equal of anything I’ve read in recent years”), Marianne Moore (“a poet of stature”), and Lewis Mumford (“one of the best anyone has written in our time”). 

She started publishing her poetry while she was an undergraduate at Barnard College. Her first collection, Banners, was published by George H. Doran in 1919, and she went on to publish nine more collections after. From 1944 to 1971 she taught at Columbia University; one of her students was Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Deutsch: “Watching the immense marvel of morning / Rolling toward him all its uncreated hours.”