Our beloved MYRA SKLAREW, a matriarch of our American literary community died December 30, 2024. She was a biologist, poet, and teacher. She was author of 17 poetry collections and many other books including her last A Survivor Named Trauma: Holocaust Memory in Lithuania (published in 2020), an interdisciplinary book that combined prose, poetry and memoir. She founded the MFA in creative writing at American University and taught over 10,000 students. From 1987 to 1991, she served as president of the Yaddo arts colony. With support from The George Washington University, she was the founder of A Splendid Wake, the archival project that operated from 2013 to 2022 and whose purpose it was to preserve the legacy of poetry in the Greater Washington, DC area from 1900 to the current day. Her family is planning her splendid wake and we will let you know when we know. In the meantime, find the witty obituary she wrote herself that was published in The Washington Post on December 31.
Here is a poem by Myra Sklarew:
The Sunflowers of Umbertide
Before I go into the dark places,
before I enter
the tunnel of the past, before I climb down
into the pit where I kneel on the earth,
where those I once loved leave me a remnant
of bone, before their lost names scatter
to the wind, before the trees forget what they witness,
before for no reason at all a child is taken
from life, before before . . .
I stand in Umbertide
where the sunflowers turn their
bountiful heads
eastward, their buds still in circadian rhythm.
And I am warmed by them, my eyes fill
with their seeds and petals, florets in perfect spirals,
their golden offerings risen high on their stems.
I carry them in my arms, the entire field of sunflowers
from Umbertide, so the coldness of the pit
in the cold country will not freeze me entirely.
