Poet Sel­ma Meer­baum-Eisinger saw the world through love and heart­break; she heard song in foot­steps on snow, in chest­nuts’ ​“soft mouths,” and in the chang­ing of the sea­sons. But just like the blooms she wrote about, her life was a short one. Born in 1924 in Czer­nowitz, Roma­nia (now Cher­nivt­si, Ukraine), Meer­baum-Eisinger was in tenth grade when World War II began. In 1941, she was impris­oned in a Jew­ish ghet­to; in 1942, she was deport­ed to Michailowka, a forced labor camp, where she died the same year of typhus. 

Thank­ful­ly, Meerbaum-Eisinger’s words and voice are not lost to us. Due to the deter­mi­na­tion of friends and fam­i­ly, the poems Meer­baum-Eisinger wrote between the ages of fif­teen and eigh­teen and hand­bound into a sin­gle man­u­script were saved and brought to read­ers in Israel in the late 1970s and in Ger­many in 1980. Ear­li­er, in 1968, poet Paul Celan, Meerbaum-Eisinger’s cousin, agreed to have his now-clas­sic poem ​“Todesfuge” includ­ed in a Ger­man anthol­o­gy on the con­di­tion that her ​“Poem” would be pub­lished along­side it. And now, Eng­lish read­ers can dis­cov­er Meer­baum-Eisinger as well in Song of the Yel­low Asters, a bril­liant trans­la­tion of her hand­bound col­lec­tion by Car­lie Hoffman. 

Sev­er­al of Meerbaum-Eisinger’s poems are rem­i­nis­cent of bursts of spring: engag­ing all the sens­es and full of vital­i­ty. But this joy is often accom­pa­nied by a long­ing, an under­ly­ing qui­et and del­i­cate dance with grief, which Hoffman’s trans­la­tion cap­tures mov­ing­ly. In ​“Late After­noon” Meer­baum-Eisinger writes: “ … you almost want to scold the with­ered, / rustling leaves … / You want to hear the vio­lets grow.” 

Meerbaum-Eisinger’s voice con­veys a strength of spir­it and a stead­fast resolve to resist despair. While she wit­nessed the polit­i­cal cli­mate and land­scape change quick­ly and dra­mat­i­cal­ly, her poems hold onto a dogged hope: ​“Here and there are sun­rays, glint­ing— / the rain is none of their con­cern.” Meer­baum-Eisinger wrote the tit­u­lar poem, ​“Song of the Yel­low Asters,” on June 30, 1941, the same day the Sovi­et army left Czer­nowitz. It would be less than a week lat­er that Ger­man troops would invade. Still, Meer­baum-Eisinger remained unde­terred: ​“My blaz­ing yel­low smile rain’s sor­row can’t swal­low.” Her lat­er words are far less hope­ful but no less beau­ti­ful and poignant. The last poem in the col­lec­tion, writ­ten on Decem­ber 12, 1941, is a short, stun­ning, painful poem, apt­ly titled ​“Tragedy.” 

We can nev­er know what artists such as Meer­baum-Eisinger would have giv­en the world had their young lives not been so bru­tal­ly tak­en. Yet, through Song of the Yel­low Asters, Hoff­man pro­vides us a glimpse of the life and life force of one such artist. Meerbaum-Eisinger’s voice is an impor­tant one. What a gift to now be able to savor her words.