Biography

Kirsch was born and brought up in Koppies

Koppies

Koppies is a small town situated near the Renoster River in the Free State province of South Africa. It was originally called "Honing Kopjes" which is Dutch for "honey hills". This was due to there being Bee infestations in the nearby rocky hills, during the building of the railway line in 1904 by...

 in the Orange Free State

Orange Free State

The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...

. Her father had emigrated there from Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

 and, though a Yiddish speaker, brought his daughter up to speak English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. She nevertheless wrote in Afrikaans

Afrikaans

Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...

, publishing eight books of poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 in that language, as well as a volume of selected poems (she was only the second female Afrikaans poet to be published). Kirsch emigrated to Israel at the age of twenty-four, living there from 1948 until her death.

In 1990 she published her first book of poetry in English. She continued to write in English, and was actively involved with the Israel Association of Writers in English. Though well-known as a poet in South Africa, she failed to achieve the same degree of fame in Israel or the English-speaking world.

Her poetry was marked by meter

Meter (poetry)

In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...

 and often by rhyme

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...

. In her youth she wrote mainly about the inhumanity of racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

, and of her longing for Zion

Zion

Zion is a place name often used as a synonym for Jerusalem. The word is first found in Samuel II, 5:7 dating to c.630-540 BCE...

. As she matured, more personal themes became central. She wrote a series of sonnets dedicated to her husband, the mathematician Joseph Gillis. She wrote in mourning of her mother, and of her beloved granddaughter who died at nine years of age. Throughout her writing there are poems on the theme of nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

, and the destruction of nature.

An accomplished linguist

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, she translated her poetry from Afrikaans into English and Hebrew. When unable to write, she would draw

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

 from nature, carve

Wood carving

Wood carving is a form of working wood by means of a cutting tool in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object...

 in wood, and embroider

Embroidery

Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....

. Her sensitivity to nature affected her work in these media as well.

External links

• Olga Kirsch from the Database of Family Names, Personality of the Week (retrieved 17 May 2006)
• English Writing in Israel Karen Alkalay-Gut (retrieved 17 May 2006)
• List of contributors from Metamorphoses