Lamentations

The American poet Alter Brody was born in Ukraine and brought to the United States at age eight. He was educated in New York City public schools and rapidly became conversant in American culture and literature. At a young age he began contributing to well-known literary and public affairs magazines and attracted attention for his poetry. In the 1920s, however, his literary output diminished as he was drawn into political activism, specifically writing articles in praise of the Soviet Union. In 1934, he announced his intention to publish a wide-ranging anthology of Yiddish literature in English translation, but it never appeared. In the end, he disappeared from the literary scene and little is known of his later life.