Redwing: Poems by Marvin Orbach

It was with much pleasure and reverence that I accepted the request by Richard Grove, Publisher of Hidden Brook Press, to write a foreword to Redwing, a provocative jewel of poems written by Marvin Orbach. The book was thoroughly and lovingly compiled by his daughter, Ariella.

As I stepped into the man and his work, the first thing that impressed me was that Orbach, known to be very modest, had never told anyone about his poems: it was his wife, Grabriella, who found them after his passing. Ariella herself said once that her "dad was very humble". That makes Orbach an even greater librarian, book collector, poet and person. His formidable legacy of books and his passionate poetry honorably contribute to the already vast Canadian cultural mosaic.

My usual approach to writing a foreword starts with skimming the work to get into the mood and style of the material. In the case of this book I changed that procedure as soon as I started reading by jotting down notes as I flipped through the pages outlining my first-read impressions. Orbach's book has been divided in the four seasons, in the order of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. As a whole I found the book to be a fine collection of thirty poems whose center is light, sometimes witty critique about social issues, and nature.

The poet embraces nature and the wild world around him in "Silverfish". It is a truly heart-felt reflection. "True Happiness" ends the book as a vibrant, philosophical tour-de- force. Orbach s return to his playing with time: the yesterday-today- tomorrow labyrinth where he clings to "flashes of light".

He realizes that life brings both happiness and sadness, and seems to have discovered a stopover where he "relaxes". Somehow I modestly tried to explain that idea in a poem of mine: "We must embrace life, it carries a bag of light, a bag of darkness, both... But we must cling onto life". I can feel that in Orbach s writing, communicated a thousand times better.

You will fly high and low with Orbach s "blaze-of- light" Redwing. Like the bird, that takes flight or plummets to lightly touch the ground or the water, so does Orbach with his mighty verb and his sweeping descriptions in this pack of flapping poems carefully chosen by Ariella. The direct, sensitive poet has regaled us a world of movement, colors and sounds that we cannot freeze. His words are there waiting for us to open the book's pages so they can flutter and flee to Orbach s beloved nature where cormorants seem to "hold the answer to the great beyond".

Orbach s daughter has given us an outstanding compilation of her father's poetry. She put into it her love, insight and endless admiration for a man who chose to have a low profile, yet left for us a huge patrimony that shall not go unnoticed. His collecting and writing hobbies are treasures now.

Don't forget to open the book always following his instructions to Ariella when she would sit and read from his collection: "not to open the volumes too wide". Rise and glide then with the redwing, dear reader, it will be a flight to remember

Miguel ngel Oliv Iglesias PhD

Associate Professor, University of Holgu n, Cuba

President of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance (Cuban)

Author: Marvin Orbach
Publisher: Hidden Brook Press
Published: 04/20/2018
Pages: 64
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.23lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.15d
ISBN: 9781927725528

About the Author
Orbach, Marvin: - "Marvin Orbach was born in 1940 in Toronto to Bella and Carl Orbach, who had arrived from Poland in the 1920s. Marvin moved to Montreal with his parents and brother Bernie at the age of 12. After obtaining a Masters in Library Science from McGill University in 1966, Orbach channeled his love of learning and of literature into a 39-year career as a reference and selections librarian at Concordia University. In 1974 he married Gabriella Singerman, a contemporary ballet dancer and teacher who, in 1982, gave birth to their daughter Ariella. Orbach began collecting English-language poetry books at 17 years of age. From his first acquisition, Montreal poet Louis Dudek's The Transparent Sea, until Orbach's death in 2015, his unique collection grew to over 5,000 books, chapbooks, manuscripts and correspondence by Canadian poets writing in the English language. Orbach collected the works and ephemera of iconic Canadian poets - Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton - and of emerging and lesser-known poets, whom he encouraged and celebrated by reserving them a space of equal importance in his collection. For decades, Orbach's collection grew in his home in Montreal. In 2002, he donated his 2,400 books and ephemera to the University of Calgary, where it became the Marvin Orbach Collection of Contemporary Canadian Poetry. When Orbach retired in 2005, he began adding to his collection weekly, more than doubling its size between 2002 and 2015. The Marvin Orbach Collection is recognized as cultural property of national importance by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board. The collection, Orbach has explained, was motivated by his love for Canada and his gratitude for the country's acceptance of his immigrant parents. Aside from poetry, Marvin cultivated a passion for travel, visiting such far-ranging places as the jungles of Peru and Brazil, the former Yugoslavia and the Israeli desert; he worked and studied Hebrew on a kibbutz for one year after graduating from his Bachelors degree at McGill University. Orbach was also a dedicated birder and environmentalist who often described his religion as a that of a deep love and connection with nature. These themes are pervasive in his poetry. Marvin Orbach died on February 8, 2015, at the age of 74. He was adding volumes to his collection until his final days. Known to be a very modest person, Orbach never told anyone about his own poems, which were found after his passing by his wife Gabriella. On his tombstone is an inscription from one of his muses, Leonard Cohen: There's a blaze of light"

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