Rachel Hadas
Autor von Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry
Über den Autor
Rachel Hadas is the author of twenty books of poetry, essays, and translations, most recently the prose collection Talking to the Dead, The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the O. B. Hardison Poetry Prize, among other honors, Hadas is Board of Governors Professor of English at Rutgers mehr anzeigen University-Newark. She lives in New York City with her husband, artist Shalom Gorewitz, with whom she has been working on marrying poetry and video. weniger anzeigen
Bildnachweis: James J. Kriegsmann Jr.
Werke von Rachel Hadas
Zugehörige Werke
When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women (1900) — Mitwirkender — 11 Exemplare
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Wissenswertes
- Gebräuchlichste Namensform
- Hadas, Rachel
- Geburtstag
- 1948-11-08
- Geschlecht
- female
- Nationalität
- USA
- Geburtsort
- New York, New York, USA
- Wohnorte
- New York, New York, USA
- Ausbildung
- Princeton University (PhD | 1982)
Johns Hopkins University (MA | 1977)
Radcliffe College (BA|1969) - Berufe
- poet
essayist
professor
translator - Beziehungen
- Hadas, Moses (father)
Gorewitz, Shalom (husband)
Edwards, George (husband - until his death in 2011) - Organisationen
- Rutgers University, Newark
- Preise und Auszeichnungen
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature, 1990)
American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1995) - Kurzbiographie
- Rachel Hadas grew up in Manhattan, a daughter of classical scholar Moses Hadas and Latin teacher Elizabeth Chamberlayne Hadas. Since 1981, she has taught in the English Department of the Newark campus of Rutgers University; she previously taught writing courses at Columbia, Princeton, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the West Chester Poetry Conference, and the 92nd Street Y in New York. Besides publishing her own work, she has translated poetry by Euripides, Racine, Baudelaire, Karyotakis, and many others.
She was married for more than 30 years to composer and music professor George Edwards, who died in 2011.
Mitglieder
Rezensionen
Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas is a memoir in which Hadas shares how she managed to cope with the progression of her husband's dementia. It is an honest, achingly personal account of how she turned to literature and poetry, her most faithful companions, to help her endure her husband's deteriorating condition and the deepening silence. This is not a book full of facts on how to handle your spouse's diagnoses with dementia. It is the deeply personal account of how one woman tried to keep herself on track and tried to tell the truth about what she was feeling and experiencing.
Strange Relation is a memoir for those of you who love literature and poetry and know it can sustain you through personal trials. This is the book you would write if you carefully recording unexpected insights and deeper meanings in what you were reading while experiencing a major life crisis. Rachel Hadas also clearly shows the therapeutic benefits of your own writing and self expression. It is a book penned by a true writer - a true writer coping with a great loss.
I think many readers will note a poignant passage or gain new insight while reading, however, the really careful, poetic readers are those who can record how these new insights helped them live amid their stress, inner turmoil, and insidious silence. Rachel Hadas is one of gifted souls among us who stayed in touch with her feelings and managed to express them.
While I greatly appreciated Rachel Hadas' memoir, I must point out that those who don't necessarily enjoy poetry might not be quite as enamored of it as I am. The reflections really are very much literature/poetry based. But, on the other hand, if given a chance it could also be a great comfort to others going through similar circumstances.
Very Highly Recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/… (mehr)
Strange Relation is a memoir for those of you who love literature and poetry and know it can sustain you through personal trials. This is the book you would write if you carefully recording unexpected insights and deeper meanings in what you were reading while experiencing a major life crisis. Rachel Hadas also clearly shows the therapeutic benefits of your own writing and self expression. It is a book penned by a true writer - a true writer coping with a great loss.
I think many readers will note a poignant passage or gain new insight while reading, however, the really careful, poetic readers are those who can record how these new insights helped them live amid their stress, inner turmoil, and insidious silence. Rachel Hadas is one of gifted souls among us who stayed in touch with her feelings and managed to express them.
While I greatly appreciated Rachel Hadas' memoir, I must point out that those who don't necessarily enjoy poetry might not be quite as enamored of it as I am. The reflections really are very much literature/poetry based. But, on the other hand, if given a chance it could also be a great comfort to others going through similar circumstances.
Very Highly Recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/… (mehr)
In this memoir, Hadas recounts how she used literature, particularly poetry, to help her cope with her husband's early-onset dementia. Though the changes in George were gradual, it seemed as though all of a sudden, Rachel was losing her companion of thirty years. While this type of situation would, of course, be difficult for anyone, it perhaps hits Hadas and her husband harder because they are a couple so dedicated to the work of the mind. She is a literature professor and poet, and he is a classical composer and scholar. Rachel struggles to find a meaningful way to relate to her husband, to save some vestige of the challenging and intellectual relationship they'd enjoyed for so many years.
A poet herself, Rachel reads poetry and finds her circumstances suddenly reflected in poems she'd read before:
"Though many of them are certainly beautiful, these works of literature didn't soothe or console or lull me with their beauty. On the contrary, they made me sit up and pay attention. Each in its own way, they helped me by telling me the truth, or rather a truth, about the almost overwhelming situation in which I found myself. I learned what isn't always obvious under such circumstances: I wasn't alone. Other people, these works reminded me, had experienced, if not precisely my dilemma, then their own, equally hard or harder. Those people had found the courage to face and describe situations which might easily have reduced them to silence. If silence was the enemy, literature was my best friend. No matter how lonely, frightened, confused, or angry I felt, some writer had captured the sensation" (pg. ix).
Hadas found companionship in such poems as Robert Frost's "Home Burial", Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death", Thomas Hardy's "The Subalterns", Philip Larkin's "Talking in Bed", and C.P. Cavafy's "Walls".
One of her most poignant companions is Penelope from Homer's Odyssey - she commiserates with Penelope and her "ambiguous loss":
"And now, neither wife nor widow, suspended in an open-ended period that was and was not waiting, enmeshed in the web of ambiguous loss, I understood Penelope again, newly, better" (pg. 61).
Like Penelope, Rachel both has and does not have a husband. Hadas because her husband is a shell of his former self, his mind failing, unable to connect with his wife and fulfill the role of husband and companion. Penelope because her husband, Odysseus, has been gone so long (twenty years) that most everyone, except his son and wife, assume he must be dead. Penelope must deal with a group of new suitors, vying for her hand; a hand that she knows in her heart is not available. In one of Rachel's own poems, called "The Flickering Reunion", she references this kinship. The last two lines are:
The waiting, and the pacing, and the weaving.
She's not a widow, but she sleeps alone. (pg. 62).
In all, Hadas shares about thirty of her own poems throughout Strange Relation, each one helping her in some way to process and deal with the emotions and circumstances of her life as a wife and caretaker.
Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas is part memoir, part poetry collection, and part literary criticism. I found it enlightening to read about how Hadas used literature to sustain her through difficult times in her life. The writing is excellent - clear, concise, poetic. Overall, an excellent read, particularly if you are a caretaker for a loved one, but even if you're not.… (mehr)
A poet herself, Rachel reads poetry and finds her circumstances suddenly reflected in poems she'd read before:
"Though many of them are certainly beautiful, these works of literature didn't soothe or console or lull me with their beauty. On the contrary, they made me sit up and pay attention. Each in its own way, they helped me by telling me the truth, or rather a truth, about the almost overwhelming situation in which I found myself. I learned what isn't always obvious under such circumstances: I wasn't alone. Other people, these works reminded me, had experienced, if not precisely my dilemma, then their own, equally hard or harder. Those people had found the courage to face and describe situations which might easily have reduced them to silence. If silence was the enemy, literature was my best friend. No matter how lonely, frightened, confused, or angry I felt, some writer had captured the sensation" (pg. ix).
Hadas found companionship in such poems as Robert Frost's "Home Burial", Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death", Thomas Hardy's "The Subalterns", Philip Larkin's "Talking in Bed", and C.P. Cavafy's "Walls".
One of her most poignant companions is Penelope from Homer's Odyssey - she commiserates with Penelope and her "ambiguous loss":
"And now, neither wife nor widow, suspended in an open-ended period that was and was not waiting, enmeshed in the web of ambiguous loss, I understood Penelope again, newly, better" (pg. 61).
Like Penelope, Rachel both has and does not have a husband. Hadas because her husband is a shell of his former self, his mind failing, unable to connect with his wife and fulfill the role of husband and companion. Penelope because her husband, Odysseus, has been gone so long (twenty years) that most everyone, except his son and wife, assume he must be dead. Penelope must deal with a group of new suitors, vying for her hand; a hand that she knows in her heart is not available. In one of Rachel's own poems, called "The Flickering Reunion", she references this kinship. The last two lines are:
The waiting, and the pacing, and the weaving.
She's not a widow, but she sleeps alone. (pg. 62).
In all, Hadas shares about thirty of her own poems throughout Strange Relation, each one helping her in some way to process and deal with the emotions and circumstances of her life as a wife and caretaker.
Strange Relation by Rachel Hadas is part memoir, part poetry collection, and part literary criticism. I found it enlightening to read about how Hadas used literature to sustain her through difficult times in her life. The writing is excellent - clear, concise, poetic. Overall, an excellent read, particularly if you are a caretaker for a loved one, but even if you're not.… (mehr)
A beautiful, profound, emotional, often painful story of a situation that is one many readers may face in the future. Rachel Hadas begins this heart-breaking story:
In early 2005, my husband, George Edwards, a composer and professor of music at Columbia University, was diagnosed with dementia. He was sixty-one years old. I was fifty-six. (pg. vii)
George's dementia manifested itself in a progressive, prolonged, irreversible slide into silence. He stopped talking, he stopped reading, he stopped playing music. Not abruptly, but gradually, so that it was only in retrospect that his family could pinpoint the onset of the disease. But the diagnosis proved to be only the beginning. Rachel had to learn to live in a marriage that became a shell. George was physically present, but she could often not determine whether George was mentally present. His unresponsiveness became an increasing source of angst.
As his condition deteriorated, Rachel returned to her teaching (she is Professor of English at Rutgers University) and found solace in her poetry, Greek mythology, the writings of Dickens, James, and Wharton among other, and the poems of Dickinson, Frost, Milton, among others.
This is not a quick read. It needs to be slowly assimilated both on an intellectual and an emotional basis, each reaction requiring different skills, processing and levels of grappling and grasping meanings. It contains many literary allusions, some less familiar than others. For readers without that strong literature grounding, the book may be hard going. However, the poetry is another thing entirely. It is simple, elegant, extravagant, gut-wrenching, and speaks to the reader without the need for any formal education in the genre. Obviously, those who read, write and critique poetry for a living will certainly have different experiences of her poems, but those of us who are more casual consumers still have lots to appreciate. By explaining how she wrote the poems, and what she was thinking as she wrote them, she allows us to accompany her on this troubled, dark, and often depressing journey of loneliness.
Whether Hadas' approach to coping is one that will prove helpful to readers facing similar situations ultimately will depend on the the reader's affinity for poetry and literature, and on their comfort level with solitude. It is a beautfully written presentation of one woman's journey of isolation and love, worth reading for the poetry even if the story is not one to which the reader can personally relate.
see full review at http://tutus2cents.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-strange-relation-by-rachel-hadas....… (mehr)
In early 2005, my husband, George Edwards, a composer and professor of music at Columbia University, was diagnosed with dementia. He was sixty-one years old. I was fifty-six. (pg. vii)
George's dementia manifested itself in a progressive, prolonged, irreversible slide into silence. He stopped talking, he stopped reading, he stopped playing music. Not abruptly, but gradually, so that it was only in retrospect that his family could pinpoint the onset of the disease. But the diagnosis proved to be only the beginning. Rachel had to learn to live in a marriage that became a shell. George was physically present, but she could often not determine whether George was mentally present. His unresponsiveness became an increasing source of angst.
As his condition deteriorated, Rachel returned to her teaching (she is Professor of English at Rutgers University) and found solace in her poetry, Greek mythology, the writings of Dickens, James, and Wharton among other, and the poems of Dickinson, Frost, Milton, among others.
This is not a quick read. It needs to be slowly assimilated both on an intellectual and an emotional basis, each reaction requiring different skills, processing and levels of grappling and grasping meanings. It contains many literary allusions, some less familiar than others. For readers without that strong literature grounding, the book may be hard going. However, the poetry is another thing entirely. It is simple, elegant, extravagant, gut-wrenching, and speaks to the reader without the need for any formal education in the genre. Obviously, those who read, write and critique poetry for a living will certainly have different experiences of her poems, but those of us who are more casual consumers still have lots to appreciate. By explaining how she wrote the poems, and what she was thinking as she wrote them, she allows us to accompany her on this troubled, dark, and often depressing journey of loneliness.
Whether Hadas' approach to coping is one that will prove helpful to readers facing similar situations ultimately will depend on the the reader's affinity for poetry and literature, and on their comfort level with solitude. It is a beautfully written presentation of one woman's journey of isolation and love, worth reading for the poetry even if the story is not one to which the reader can personally relate.
see full review at http://tutus2cents.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-strange-relation-by-rachel-hadas....… (mehr)
3 
tututhefirst | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Apr 14, 2011 |
tututhefirst | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Apr 14, 2011 | Dir gefällt vielleicht auch
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The truth is, if the whole book had been composed only of the intro and these poems, whether with added poems or not, this undoubtedly would have been a five-star read for me.
And yet. The last third (loosely) of the book is made up of poems and related explications of those poems, all of this written by the author who put together the collection. But even with my interest opened up to her by the opening essay, I still found it incredibly difficult to get through this section. The poems felt needlessly belabored, and often more like cut-up prose than poetry. The explications were...well...I felt like they wandered between being painfully academic and self-congratulatory. They made me dislike the author and her voice, to be honest, and I had to keep reminding myself what the first two thirds of the book had felt and looked like in order to push myself forward.
So, where does that leave me? I would absolutely recommend the first two portions of this book, the opening material and then the actual poems from the workshop. I cannot recommend what comes after them, but even so, those first two pieces--loosely a hundred pages, and more poetry than makes up many contemporary collections--are more than worth the time/effort of searching out this little-known book.… (mehr)