Even at 97 years old, Queens poet Leon Zuckrow is still penning verses dedicated to his true love, his first wife Naomi, who passed away more than 50 years ago.
“It is a way of repairing myself,” said Zuckrow, who started scrawling his thoughts after her sudden death in 1962. “Instead of seeing a psychiatrist, I wrote poetry.”
Zuckrow, a retired quality control worker for the U.S. Department of Defense, lives at the Flushing House, a nonprofit retirement community, where he spends his days working on sculptures and his poems.
His work — much of it collected in a 2007 book called “Love & Death & Love” — has the tone of elegies, speaking to love and longing.
Much of it hypothesizes about reuniting with his wife after death.
“Snow and rainbow/they come and then go,” reads one of Zuckrow’s newest poems. “Not so love/Oh no not so.”
Queens poet remembers a love lost long ago through his heartfelt poetry (via NYDailyNews)
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