YOYSEF-LEYZER KALUSHINER

YOYSEF-LEYZER KALUSHINER (June 29, 1893-1968)

            He was born in Warsaw.  He was orphaned at age three.  He was raised by a grandfather and later worked very hard to support himself.  In 1911 he graduated from a Polish commercial school as an external student.  That same year he departed for the United States.  His entire life he worked in a sweatshop.  He debuted in print in 1918 with a poem in Z. Vaynper’s Der onhoyb (The beginning).  He went on to publish poetry in: Milers vokhenblat (Miller’s weekly newspaper), Tog (Day), Kundes (Prankster), Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Forverts (Forward), Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people), Oyfkum (Arise), Frayhayt (Freedom), Shikago (Chicago), Hamer (Hammer), Ineynem (Altogether), and other periodicals in America; Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal; and the like.  He co-edited Di feder (The pen) and Literarishe heftn (Literary notebooks) in New York.  His poems also appeared in: Moyshe Shtarkman’s Hamshekh-antologye (Hamshekh anthology) (New York, 1945), Nakhmen Mayzil’s Amerike in yidishn vort (America in Yiddish) (New York, 1955); M. Basin’s Yidishe poezye af amerikaner motivn, zamlung (Yiddish poetry on American motifs, collection) (New York, 1955); and Joseph Leftwich, The Golden Peacock (New York, 1961).  From time to time he wrote about Yiddish poetry.  His works include: Arum mir (Around me) (New York: Di feder, 1922), 122 pp.; Sonetn (Sonnets) (New York: A. Biderman, 1932), 128 pp.; Afn veg fun doyres (On the path of generations), poems (New York, 1949), 223 pp.; In likht fun mayn dor (In the light of my generation) (New York, 1960).  He died in New York.  “Over the course of the years,” wrote Yankev Glatshteyn, “Y. L. Kalushiner succeeded in finding his own quiet pathway with which he could have a monologue with an assemblage of word which he deployed, spoke, and sang.  Fitting exactly to that which he wished to lay out, we have numerous poems of a taciturn musicality, a quiet monologue of a poet apart.”

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Shmuel Niger, in Dos naye lebn (New York) (June 1923); Y. Dobrushin, in Shtrom (Moscow) 5/6 (1924); Z. Vaynper, in Der oyfkum (New York) (December 1932); A. Tabatshnik, in Yidish (New York) (December 2, 1932); Hamshekh-antologye (Hamshekh anthology) (New York, 1945), p. 111; Yankev Glatshteyn, Prost un poshet, literarishe eseyen (Plain and simple, literary essays) (New York, 1978); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Sh. Apter