Naomi Lazard
{{Short description|American poet, author and playwright (1928–2021)}}
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| name = Naomi Lazard
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1928|3|17|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
| death_date = {{death date and age|2021|12|22|1928|3|17|mf=y}}
| death_place = Englewood, New Jersey
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Naomi Lazard (born Naomi Katz in Philadelphia, March 17, 1928, died December 22, 2021) was an American poet, children's literature author, and playwright.{{Cite web |title=Naomi Lazard, Poet and Translator |url=https://www.easthamptonstar.com/obituaries/202223/naomi-lazard-poet-and-translator |website=The East Hampton Star |last=Segal |first=Mark |date=3 February 2022 |access-date=6 January 2023}} She was the winner of two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a former president of the Poetry Society of America. Her translations of Faiz Ahmed Faiz have been widely acclaimed.{{cite journal |last=Ali |first=Agha Shahid |date=1990 |title=The True Subject: The Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25007348 |journal=Grand Street |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=129–138 |doi=10.2307/25007348 |jstor=25007348 |access-date=6 January 2023}}
Biography
She has published three volumes of poetry: Cry of the Peacocks (Harcourt, Brace & World; 1967), The Moonlit Upper Deckerina (Sheep Meadow Press, 1977), and Ordinances (Ardis, 1984). The poems in Ordinances are notable for their "dark Orwellian tone" - describing life lived under a monstrous, faceless bureaucracy.
She also brought out The True Subject: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a volume of translations from the work of Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.{{Cite journal|last=Jabbar|first=Abdul|date=1991|title=NAOMI LAZARD'S "The True Subject: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz"|jstor=40873227|journal=Journal of South Asian Literature|volume=26|issue=1/2|pages=156–170}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lfrfRo1FKLgC&q=Naomi+Lazard&pg=PA79|title=Between Languages and Cultures: Translation and Cross-Cultural Texts|last1=Dingwaney|first1=Anuradha|last2=Maier|first2=Carol|date=1996-01-15|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre|isbn=9780822974680|language=en}} She has also translated the works of Romanian poet Nina Cassian.
She is also the author of the children’s book What Amanda Saw (illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky). She also wrote the screenplay The White Raven, and the play, The Elephant and the Dove.
In 1992, Lazard co-founded the Hamptons International Film Festival.{{Cite web|url=http://www.danspapers.com/2012/10/how-the-hamptons-international-film-festival-was-founded/|title=How the Hamptons International Film Festival Was Founded|website=danspapers.com|date=4 October 2012 |language=en|access-date=2017-08-29}}
Despite her prominence as a poet, Lazard is considered a "poet's poet" and not very well known in broader circles.{{Cite web|url=https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/faiz-1988-true-subject-selected.html#bio/|title=Literary biography: Naomi Lazard|website=IIT Kanpur|access-date=6 January 2023}} Her poems have been anthologized in Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer's Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems (2007) and in Czeslaw Milosz's anthology, The Book of Luminous Things (1996). Her poem, To Answer Your Query, has been read by Garrison Keillor on National Public Radio.{{Cite web|url=https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2003%252F07%252F22.html|title=In Answer to Your Query|website=The Writer's Almanac|date=22 July 2003|language=en|access-date=6 January 2023}}
Bibliography
- Cry of the Peacocks (1967)
- The Moonlit Upper Deckerina (1977){{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mBRlQgAACAAJ|title=The Moonlit Upper Deckerina|last=Lazard|first=Naomi|date=1977|publisher=Sheep Meadow Press|isbn=0818015403|language=en}}
- What Amanda Saw (1981) (illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky){{Cite book|url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL4100104M/What_Amanda_saw|title=What Amanda saw|year=1981 |publisher=Greenwillow Books |ol=4100104M |access-date=6 January 2023}}
- Ordinances (1984)
References
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Category:21st-century American women
Category:American children's writers
Category:American women children's writers