Robert Friend was an American-born poet and translator. After moving to Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, he became a professor of English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

.

Biography

Friend was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants. After studying at Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

, Harvard and Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

, he taught English literature and writing in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Panama, France, England, and Germany. He settled in Israel in 1950, where he lived the rest of his life. He taught English and American Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for over thirty years. He was well known in Israel as an English-language poet and a translator of Hebrew poetry.

Robert Friend was gay, and his sexuality found expression in his poetry well before the Stonewall

Stonewall riots

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...

 era. According to Edward Field in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Shadow on the Sun is "remarkable in that, for its time, it contains so many poems about the author's homosexuality." Friend's openness continued throughout his writing career.

Friend's many publications span over fifty years, beginning with his first published volume of verse (Shadow on the Sun, 1941). His last collection of poetry, Dancing with a Tiger: Poems 1941-1998, was published posthumously in 2003. Toby Press has published two volumes of Friend's translations in its Hebrew Classics Series: Found in Translation: Modern Hebrew Poets, A Bilingual Edition (2006, Second Revised Edition) and Ra'hel: Flowers of Perhaps (2008, Second Revised Edition). Friend translated the work of Haim Nachman Bialik, Rachel

Rachel

Rachel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, is a prophet and the favorite wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife...

, Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg

Leah Goldberg

Leah Goldberg was a prolific Hebrew poet, author, playwright, literary translator, and comparative literary researcher. Her writings are considered classics of Israeli literature and remain very popular among Hebrew speaking Israelis.-Biography:...

, Gabriel Preil

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. The critic Yael Feldman has done significant work on Preil, focusing on the Yiddish influences in his Hebrew poetry...

 and Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai was an Israeli poet. Amichai is considered by many, both in Israel and internationally, as Israel's greatest modern poet. He was also one of the first to write in colloquial Hebrew....

into English.

Poetry

• Dancing with a Tiger: Poems 1941-1998, Edited by Edward Field, Preface by Gabriel Levin (Menard Press, London, 2003)
• After Catullus (The Beth-Shalom Press, Israel, 1997)
• The Next Room (The Menard Press, London, 1995)
• Abbreviations (Etcetera Editions, Israel, 1994)
• Dancing With A Tiger (The Beth-Shalom Press, Israel, 1990)
• Somewhere Lower Down (The Menard Press, London, 1980)
• Selected Poems (Tambimuttu at The Seahorse Press, London, 1976)
• The Practice of Absence (Beth-Shalom Press, Israel, 1971)
• Salt Gifts (The Charioteer Press, Washington, DC, 1964)
• Shadow on the Sun (The Press of James A. Decker, Prairie City, Illinois, 1941)

Translations

• Flowers of Perhaps: Selected Poems of Ra’hel, A Bilingual Edition (The Toby Press, 2008)
• Found in Translation: 20 Hebrew Poets: A Bilingual Edition, Edited and Introduced by Gabriel Levin (The Toby Press, 2006)
• Found in Translation: 100 Years of Modern Hebrew Poetry, Edited and Introduced by Gabriel Levin, Menard Press, 1999 (Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation)
• S.Y. Agnon: The Book Of The Alphabet (The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1998)
• Featured Translator, “Palestinian and Israeli Poets,” Modern Poetry in Translation, No. 14, Winter 1998-99, Edited by Daniel Weissbort
• Flowers of Perhaps: Selected Poems of Ra’hel (Menard Press, London, 1995)
• Featured Translator, “Second International Poets Festival, Jerusalem,” Modern Poetry in Translation, No. 4, Winter 1993-94, Edited by Daniel Weissbort
• Leah Goldberg: Selected Poems (Menard Press, Panjandrum Press, 1976)
• Gabriel Preil: Sunset Possibilities and Other Poems (The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1985)

8 Natan Alterman: Selected Poems (Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Israel, 1978)

Seminars

• Poetry reading and discussion. “Three Maverick Poets: An Unflinching Exploration of the Lives and Works of Robert Friend, ‘34, Chester Kallman, ‘41, and Harold Norse, ‘38.” Discussion leaders: Edward Field, Edward Mendelson, and Regina Weinrich. Sponsored by Brooklyn College, New York, October 27, 2005.

Periodicals

• Poetry and translations in Poetry, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Tikkun, Home Planet News, The Jerusalem Post, The Independent, The Atlantic, The Nation, Commentary, The Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic, Partisan Review, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly Review of Literature, Jerusalem Review, Hadassah Magazine, The London Magazine, European Judaism, Forward, Tel Aviv Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Ariel, Israel Life and Letters, Neovictorian/Cochlea, Delos, Shirim, Arc 3, 5 A.M., Bay Windows, Midstream

Radio

• Three poems recited by Garrison Keillor in “The Writer’s Almanac,” January 2003 and January 2004
• “Dreamstreets” program, moderated by Steven Leech, devoted to the poetry of Robert Friend, February 2004 (University of Delaware at Newark)

Musical Compositions

• Translation of poem by Natan Alterman in “Mother’s Lament,” composed by Sharon Farber, performed by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, September 2002
• Translation of poem by Ra’hel in “Women of Valor,” composed by Andrea Clearfield

External links

• http://robert_friend.tripod.com
• http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/friendfeature.htm
• http://www.homeplanetnews.org/RobertFriend.html
• http://www.glbtq.com/literature/friend_r.html
• ftp://ftp.yaddo.org/Yaddo/newsletter-spring2004.pdf
• http://www.tobypress.com/books/foundintranslation.htm
• http://www.tobypress.com/books/rachel.htm
• Robert Friend’s copyrights are held by his niece Jean Cantu (jeancantu@hotmail.com).
• Robert Friend’s Archives are located at The Brooklyn College Library, Department of Special Collection (718-951-5346).