// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Enid Dame say to her date? "You're a poem in my heart, a dame good time.
Enid Dame (June 28, 1943, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania – December 25, 2003) was an American poet, fiction writer, teacher, editor, and publisher.[1][2][3]
Life
[edit]Dame was born Enid Sue Jacobs to Morton and Bernice Jacobs, middle-class Baltimore Jewish artists, who inspired her artistic sensitivity and political activity.[4] She received a Bachelor's degree from Towson State College, Maryland, Master's from City College of New York, and Ph.D from Rutgers University.[5] By 1967 she was an anti-Vietnam War activist, and in 1969, according to QLF activist Barbara de Lamere, she participated in the demonstration on the second day of Stonewall Riots.[6]
For many years, she and her husband, poet Donald Lev, lived in Brooklyn and in High Falls, New York, where they edited and published the literary tabloid Home Planet News founded in 1979. She was on the faculty of the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, where she served as Associate Director of the Writing Program.[7]
Dame was one of several poets considered for Poet Laureate of Brooklyn in 1995 after Norman Rosten’s death, but the title went to Dennis Nurkse.[8]
Dame's poems explored themes of urban life, Jewish history and identity, and political activism. She examined contemporary women's lives in persona poems that take on the voice of Eve, Lilith, or other woman from Jewish tradition. These poems often locate a kernel of feminist rebellion in familiar Biblical stories. She was a member of the Editorial Collective of Jewish feminist magazine Bridges.[7] The 2007 anthology Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn, edited by Julia Kasdorf and Michael Tyrell, was dedicated to her memory.[9] Jeanne Marie Beaumont endowed the Academy of American Poets with Enid Dame Memorial Poetry Prize, awarded to the best undergraduate poem.[1]
Works
[edit]- Riding the D Train
- On the Road to Damascus, Maryland
- Lilith[10]
- Lilith's New Career
- Lilith and Her Demons
- Dream Wedding
- Anything You Don't See
Further reading
[edit]- Poets on the Psalms featuring Enid Dame. Edited by Lynn Domina (Trinity University Press, 2008).
References
[edit]- 1 2 "Friends of Rutgers - A Newsletter for Alumni and Friends of the Department of English". english.rutgers.edu. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
- ↑ "Enid Jacobs Dame: Selected poems and Biographical introduction". www.magickalmind.com. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
- ↑ Dame, Enid (2007). "A Paradoxical Prophet: Jewish Women Poets Re-Imagine Miriam". Bridges. 12 (1): 4–11. doi:10.2979/bri.2007.12.1.4. ISSN 1046-8358. JSTOR 40358112.
- ↑ M, Gefen. "Poets In our Midst: Enid Dame". Kol BT. Retrieved 2026-07-30.
- ↑ de Lamiere, Careufel (2004-01-09). "Paid Notice: Deaths DAME, DR. ENID SUE JACOBS". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
- ↑ "Home Planet News Enid Dame tribute issue: Careufel de Lamiere". web.njit.edu. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
- 1 2 "Enid Dame". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
- ↑ "Brooklyn poets remember | Brooklyn Public Library". www.bklynlibrary.org. 2024-05-14. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
- ↑ Kasdorf, Julia; Tyrell, Michael (April 2007). Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-4802-2.
- ↑ "Enid Dame". www.echonyc.com. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
External links
[edit]- Honoring Enid Dame at Rutgers
- In Memorial to Enid Dame
- Poets Enid Dame and Donald Lev
- Enid Dame Poems
- Enid Dame videotaped reading Lilith on YouTube
- "Enid Dame's Householdry" by Burt Kimmelman, in Rain Taxi (Summer 2009)
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- 1943 births
- 2003 deaths
- New Jersey Institute of Technology faculty
- Rutgers University faculty
- American fiction writers
- 20th-century American poets
- American women academics
- 21st-century American women
- 20th-century American women poets
- American poet, 1940s birth stubs
- Rutgers University alumni
- City College of New York alumni
- Towson University alumni
- American anti–Vietnam War activists
- 20th-century American Jews
- Jewish American women writers
- Jewish American poets
- Jewish American feminists