Samuel Menashe

Samuel Menashe (1925-2011) was the first poet to be honored with the “Neglected Masters Award” given by Poetry magazine and the Poetry Foundation in 2004. After fighting in World War II and returning to Europe to earn a degree at the Sorbonne in 1950, Menashe published his first poem in the Yale Review in 1956. For many years he remained a marginal figure in the American poetry scene, but his work garnered much praise in the United Kingdom. His poetry collections included No Jerusalem But This (1971), Fringe of Fire (1973), To Open (1974), Collected Poems (National Poetry Foundation, 1986), The Niche Narrows (2000), and Samuel Menashe: New and Selected Poems (2005).