The Children's Hour

Singer's early years were indelibly marked by the violence of her father. His despair and suffering tempered her feelings as she grew to understand why he raged. Her childhood world was informed by race tracks, bookmakers, small time mobsters and their endless gifts. Her mother was emotionally and often physically absent. Singer began writing at age 9. After her father's death at age 19 she traveled to Israel only to discover she was not a Jew. Her poetry captures the memories of the child caught between warring parents, a world at war with itself and coming to grip with feminism at the close of the 20th century. The fierce, emotional voice of a survivor.