“Poetry is honest. Poetry is concerned with the truth of language. It does not use language to hide things. As imaginative as poetry may be, it deals with reality.” - Charlotte Mandel

Mid-life passion for poetry leads to inspired career

Poet Charlotte Mandel with her latest book of poetry.
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Poet Charlotte Mandel didn’t grow up dreaming to be a renowned, published poet. Instead, after happily getting married and having children, this prolific writer said she hit her forties and realized one day that something was missing.

“I started writing poetry when I was in my forties,” said Mandel. “Though I wrote my first poem at the age of 8, I did not write another poem for a quarter century.”

Somehow, this dormant talent grew to be a great inspiration - and success - in this petite poet’s life. Now, at “eighty something” years of age, Mandel is once again publishing a book of poems.

Winner of the 2012 New Jersey Poet’s Prize, her new book of poems, “Life Work: Poems by Charlotte Mandel” is her eighth published book of poems.

Reading this latest work, I had to marvel at the melodic magic of her latest offering of poetry. Dedicated to her late husband Manny Mandel and her children and grandchildren, this poet deftly moves from the maddening and surreal reality of losing a spouse after decades of marriage: “My dreams have lost their logic since you died” (Sleeping in Half a Bed) to memories from her childhood when “As a child I knelt/with cupped hands/to catch flickers of fish” (Sea Chantey).

Truly, as you savor the poems on these pages you realize you are in the presence of a

poet with a solid foundation - and appreciation - of not only form but melodic, graceful imagery. This is not a book of poems that needs to hit you on the head to make a point. Instead, there is a graceful clarity to her work.

Poet and critic Grace Cavalieri, who listed this book as “a Best Book Read”, agrees.

“It is Mandel’s poems on her husband’s death I will remember above all this year for elegance and restraint,” noted Cavalieri. “She chooses formal diction in verse to achieve a firm focus while allowing gifted flexibility within the lines.  Our complex lives are richer for the clear beautiful eye of Charlotte Mandel--whether writing about a new sweater for an aged father or an estranged brother’s death, she grasps us out of our wilderness to say look at this truth, how language retrieves us from turmoil.”

Visiting with Mandel at Crane’s Mill, where she lives in a sun-filled apartment filled with works of art and numerous books, Mandel traced part of her journey as a full time writer.

“With a few other women, when my son was 3 years old, I worked in a group for peace called Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WLIPF),” said Mandel.

“This was a major influence for me. I had worked on a “Mother Goose Tells it like it is” reading for a fundraiser, and then kept writing. I guess there always seemed to be something missing from my life.”

Mandel started a poetry workshop and attended writing classes, eventually ending up teaching poetry at Barnard College, in the 1990's. Under the umbrella of Poets and Writers, she also participated in a writing group with other women, getting published in an anthology, and then decided to write her own book of poetry.

When asked if she can look at her adult life in poetry and explain to readers today what is so vital and important about poems, she laughed.

“That’s easy,” she said. “Poetry is honest. Poetry is concerned with the truth of language. It does not use language to hide things. As imaginative as poetry may be, it deals with reality.”

This Wednesday, poet Charlotte Mandel will be reading her poems at Crane’s Mill at 2:00 p.m.

Life Work

poems by Charlotte Mandel

Wednesday, September 18

2:00 p.m.

459 Passaic Avenue

West Caldwell, New Jersey