SELMA MEERBAUM-EISINGER
“I want to hold sky in my hands
I want to be free and breathe and scream.”
My translation of Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger’s Blütenlese is forthcoming from World Poetry Books in 2026.
Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, a younger cousin of Paul Celan, was a Jewish, German-language poet and translator who died in a Nazi labor camp in 1942, at the age of 18. She left behind a collection of 57 handwritten poems—52 originals, and five translations of works by other poets—in a hand-bound volume titled Blütenlese (Harvest of Blossoms). The manuscript miraculously survived the war, due to the dedication of her friends. Meerbaum-Eisinger’s poems draw from myths, songs, and the natural world, blending this material to capture small moments of tranquility amid the violence of antisemitism, express heartbreak, and shed light on the brutality of her experience in the ghetto. In haunting, lyrical verse, she creates an emotional counterworld constructed of rich imagery and stark music—a space of reflection and resistance.
SELECTED ONLINE PUBLICATIONS
