Passion: Poems of Love and Protest
PREFACE by Judith Weinshall Liberman
Return to Passion: Poems of Love and Protest
PASSION is my ninth published book. It contains 150 poems and lyrics. Unlike my previous book, REFLECTIONS: Poems, Lyrics, and Stories, which I published in collaboration with my daughter, Dr. Laura Liberman, and which contained materials authored by each of us over a period of decades, the present volume contains only poems/lyrics written by me in 2012.
Having spent the bulk of my adult life creating visual art, I shifted my focus to writing after reaching my eighties. At first I concentrated on playwriting, a form of writing I had done intermittently since my college days in the late 1940s. Writing plays led me to write the libretto for two musicals based on my own plays, and I so enjoyed writing lyrics for these musicals, that when the musicals were completed, I proceeded to write individual poems/lyrics unassociated with any musical play. In many instances, I had these poems/lyrics set to music by the same gifted young man who composed the music for my two musicals. In this book, the lyrics are distinguishable from the poems in that the lyrics contain a chorus, which is indented.
I never expected that I would become a poet/lyricist in my old age. Although my mother was a poet, I did not foresee that I would follow in her footsteps. And yet, I so enjoy this form of writing that I suspect I will pursue it indefinitely.
The 150 poems/lyrics in Passion are divided into 7 distinct categories - Love, Relationships, Human Foibles, God's Justice, Looking Back, Reflections, and Musings - and are organized thematically within each of these categories. Some of the poems/lyrics are humorous, while others are somber. What all of them have in common is that they come from my heart.
Although the range of subjects covered is wide, each of the works expresses something important I discovered during my long journey through life. Like life itself, PASSION covers the whole gamut of human experience.
I hope my readers find meaning and pleasure in my poetry.
I am grateful to my beloved daughter, Dr. Laura Liberman, and to my dear friends Jennie Jones and Judy Robbins, for their editorial assistance.