Sirowitz said

Poet makes mother's memory a blessing - in print

STEFANIE L. PEARSON
Assistant Editor

She'd be quite surprised, then, to discover that she's the inspiration for a series of poems The Village Voice calls "the channeled voice of Philip Roth in a state of catatonic dementia."

The one doing the channeling is Estelle's son - her only son - Hal Sirowitz, 47.

A special-education teacher by trade, Sirowitz says his mother wanted him to become a doctor or lawyer, a professional. So how would she feel about his becoming a... poet?

Prior to her death in December 1992, "I thought, if I would tell my mother I was writing, she would beat me over the head," he says, his words squeezed by a thick, 'I-am-from-New-Yawk' twang.

"She'd think that I would become a beatnik," he continues. "She always said, 'You do one thing well in life. You have a good job, raise a family.' Those are the things you're supposed to do."

Then again, Estelle Sirowitz said a lot of things.

Sirowitz's poems - a collection of which, "Mother Said," was published last year by Crown - are mostly written in his mother's voice, as she dispenses advice on everything from not sticking a finger in a ketchup bottle to the existence of God.

Only the dead know. But they're too busy being dead to tell us. So if I were you I would go to temple, & play it safe

Sirowitz, whose voice has a syrupy quality to it, a Paul Tsongas-esque, molasses feel, is known for his monotonic delivery. He reads his poems without a hint of irony, merely transferring his words from paper to air.

Today's poet - according to the MTV model - is hardly the effete flower sniffer of days of yore; he or she is painfully honest, often a bit angry and ever-so-cool.

There's a bit of irony in that, Sirowitz concedes, given that he was anything but one of the "cool kids" in his youth.

"I'm a little old to be writing about my parents," he says, "but I still do it. I guess I'm hip, but not hip in the right way." Perhaps, as the song says, it's hip to be square? "Yeah," he says, with a laugh. "I'm so square I'm hip."

His sister Iris, who lives in North Scottsdale, remembers that "it was hard for him. He was a stutterer," she explains of their childhood in Long Beach and East Meadow on Long Island in New York. "That was a big part of the problem."

Sirowitz says other kids teased him constantly. In fact, the sense of awkwardness he felt as a child was one of the reasons he went into special education. "The kids don't quite fit in," he says, "They're like me a lot. They see themselves as outsiders."

The adult Sirowitz, who no longer stutters, still feels like a bit of an outsider, he admits, but says his poetry is the outgrowth of his difficult childhood.

Wouldn't he like to rub in his success and fame to the now-grown-up kids who were so mean to him? Not really.

"I don't hold grudges. I learned that from my mother," he explains. The boys who teased him probably don't even remember him now, he adds. "It forged an identity for me. It helped me become a writer."

Complex identity
A conversation with Sirowitz can be disarming. Always speaking simply, he sounds at first eager to please, innocent. But he sneaks in references to highbrow writers, not pretentiously, but with an apparent excitement, his voice lowering, sounding more serious.

He switches from a simple explanation of one element of his life to this reflection on the role of his mean classmates: "They made me a witness in my own life. They weren't intending to help me become a writer, but looking back and realizing that things had a purpose, it may have been God's will. And if there's a reason, it's not up to you to try to get back at them."

More than other children, though, Sirowitz says his self-perception was formed by his parents. His father, Milton, was a clothing manufacturer and distributor who overcame a childhood stutter to become a salesman - the grand poobah of extroversions.

It was his and their Jewishness, more than anything, that rendered him the outsider.

"Everyone who's Jewish is a slight outsider," he explains. "You grow up with notions of the past: our relatives came to the U.S. because they had to - to escape pogroms, Cossacks."

His maternal grandfather was the only one of 10 siblings who survived the Holocaust, he notes. "He tried to get his family here," he continues, "but he couldn't. I grew up with that. When I was young, I thought people would like me if I was nice, but my mother said certain people would never like me - because I was Jewish. That was a shock."

Avoiding a shanda fer de goyim, an embarrassment for Jews in front of gentiles, was a priority for his parents. His mother, he says, lived "in a closed- off world, not quite trusting of people who weren't Jewish. At the same time," he laughs, "she had bad experiences with Jewish people too."

In fact, the pressure he felt to be a doctor or lawyer, he notes, stemmed from his parents' belief that anti-Semitism would prevent a Jew from becoming successful in business.

For his 21st birthday, they gave him a cemetery plot. "They said 'you're Jewish. You can't be buried just anywhere,' " he explains. "Their fear of the outside world was manifested in always having a cemetery plot, a place to go when I died."

Albeit perhaps neurotic, his parents were affectionate and loving - and, above all, good parents, he says.

"They were really good parents. They loved me a lot. It was through them that I became a writer," he says. "They were always supportive; they just didn't quite know who I was. I was a different person than what they wanted."

If anything, he posits, his mother tried too hard to be a perfect mother - and, thus, expected him to be a perfect son.

His writing, he says, fills a need to be honest. "I wanted to show that my parents were disappointed in me. They thought (since) they were sending me to college, they'd get instant results. It took me a while.

"What I do is make people laugh, and then think about what they're laughing about. It's funny - but it makes you think about what parents are telling their kids, about the power parents have. They become the whole world."

His mother never knew about the success he achieved: she died just before he won a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. At the least, she'd be surprised by some of his fans.

His mother, he says, "was unhappy with my aunt because she lived close to a church. My mother thought Jews shouldn't live near churches."

Her son, the poet, has been invited to do readings at several Christian colleges, and one Christian Bible study group called. "They said that they were going to read the Old Testament in my honor," he says.

His next book, he says, will be "My Therapist Said."

"Mother Said" has a few poems written from the therapist's perspective, as well as several from girlfriends' perspectives. He's not currently attached, though.

"I don't have a good track record in relationships," he explains, his voice pregnant with puckish glee. "They think I have a mother complex. I don't know why."

Hal Sirowitz will read his poetry at Temple Solel, 6805 E. McDonald Drive, Paradise Valley, at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28. Call 991-7414.

He will also speak at the following venues:

• Bookvine, 23269 N. Pima Road, Scottsdale, 4 p.m. Saturday, March 1, 502-8052
• Private home in Sun City, 2 p.m. Sunday, March 2, 972-4091.
• Border's Books and Music, 24th Street and Camelback Road, Phoenix, 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 5, 957-6660