Helen Ratnoff Plotz

Background

Helen Plotz was born on March 20, 1913, in New York City, New York, the United States. Ratnoff's father was an associate of notable pediatrician Henry Koplik. Her brother, Oscar Ratnoff was an American physician who conducted research on the process of coagulation and blood-related disorders.

Career

Plotz compiled critically acclaimed poetry anthologies. The first of her more than a dozen anthologies was Imagination’s Other Place: Poems of Science and Mathematics, published in 1955. Other titles include Untune the Sky: Poems of Dance and Music, As I Walked Out One Evening: A Book of Ballads and Saturday's Children: Poems of Work. Many of the poets collected by Plotz wrote for young adults and the last anthology she completed was A Week of Lullabies, published in 1988.

Achievements

• Helen Ratnoff Plotz earned praise for compiling and editing almost a score of anthologies of poetry, mostly for young adults. Her 1981 anthology, Gladly Learn and Teach: Poems of the School Experience, was selected as an Ambassador of Honor Book by English-Speaking Union Books-Across-the-Sea.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Poems of Emily Dickinson

    (This collection of verses by Emily Dickinson is accompani...)

    1988
  • Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach

    (The book contains over one hundred poems concerning the l...)

    1981
  • A Week of lullabies

    (An illustrated collection of lullabies and bedtime poems ...)

    1988
  • As I Walked Out One Evening

    (A collection of old and modern ballads arranged under six...)

    1497
  • Imagination's Other Place

    (Topics range from the creation of the universe to a delic...)

    1955
  • This Powerful Rhyme

    (Presents 130 sonnets from William Shakespeare, John Donne...)

    1979
  • Eye's Delight

    (A collection of poems on art and architecture, buildings,...)

    1983
  • The Gift Outright

    (An anthology portraying America as seen by her poets from...)

  • The Marvelous Light: Poets and Poetry

    (Poets and their craft are the theme of this splendid anth...)

    1970
  • Untune the Sky
  • The Earth is the Lord's
  • Poems from the German 1957
  • Saturday's Children 1982
  • Untune the Sky 1957

Connections

Brother:

Oscar Ratnoff

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 189
  2001