New York, NY —

New Yorkers are obsessed with housing. Where else do you meet people -- for the first time --and ask, so what do you pay? Samuel Menashe is an 80-year-old poet who has managed to hold on to a little space in SoHo, for nearly his entire adult life. Producer Emily Botein went to visit.

REPORTER: Samuel Menashe describes himself as a “hermit outside the walls of the establishment.” And for most of his life, what he calls the “po-business,” the fellowships, the workshops, the prizes, was not a part of his. But he made do.

MENASHE: I didn’t revolt. I succeeded. But you can succeed, but you do you survive? Well, I have almost no rent here, I tutored, I was a tourist guide, I taught twice, oh, one can survive on very little.

REPORTER: Surrounded by piles of papers, a huge grapefruit tree – he says it’s easier to take care of than a dog -- Samuel Menashe has made his home – and his poetry -- in a small, but sunny, three room apartment for the past 49 years. It’s five flights up. Stairs only. The rent was $39 when he moved in; it hasn’t gone up much. The apartment has served its purpose, but like any New Yorker, Menashe talks of moving; he’s looking around; he’s not one to romanticize the space.

MENASHE: It hasn’t been painted in 25 years because I’m afraid of bringing a painter in here, it’s so crowded, you know this just happened by accident, by stupidity by not finding a decent apartment when I could have found one. But that’s how it is. I will read you one of my domestic poems:

At a Standstill
That statue, that cast
Of my solitude
Has found its niche
In this kitchen
Where I do not eat
Where the bathtub stands
Upon cat feet –
I did not advance
I cannot retreat

REPORTER: The details of his apartment -- the bathtub in the kitchen, the view from his window – often appear in the poems. It’s not that he wouldn’t prefer an apartment overlooking Central Park. The locale could change, but his method would not.

MENASHE: You see, I work very closely with words. Every word counts. I’ve been dismissed as slight, you know, they are too short.

REPORTER: The poems are short. In his most recent book, which came out last year, many of the poems take up little more than a quarter of a page. Menashe chisels away at his work – and his words. And he doesn’t stop carving – even post publication. Menashe changed one word in a poem 20 years after it was first published. It seems that he can’t help but do touch-ups.

MENASHE: It’s as if I sculpted a statue which remained in my studio and I passed it one morning and suddenly saw that I could do some more work on the head and neck, well, that’s how I work. Yeah. So is there a poem in your head? No, now I’m taking too many medicines, trying to figure out which inhilator to take.

REPORTER: After 80 years, health concerns have taken their toll on Menashe -- prostate cancer, heart disease and asthma.

MENASHE: : It was nip and tuck, I thought I might die before the book came out. I have a nice poem about getting old, I wrote it when I was merely middle aged.

Salt and Pepper.
Here and there
White hairs appear
On my chest –
Age season me
Gives me zest –
I am a sage in the making
Sprinkled, shaking

REPORTER: But he’s busy. He still gives readings – in New York, in LA recently, and one at Harvard too, where all was going fine, until he found himself flat on the floor. He had fainted, but he got up

MENASHE: They wanted to take me to the emergency room, I hadn’t come to Harvard. It’s a high point in my so called career, to be taken away in the midst of the reading, so they brought me some fruit juice and some crackers. …

REPORTER: And he finished up the reading.

Menashe is what you might call self-reliant … he’s resourceful.

At his local bookstore – he’s not above some rearranging … sliding Ted Hughes over to give himself a little more space on the shelf. And when he discovers a limited stock of his book -- he gives out his home number, in case they want him to bring over the few copies he has at home.

Samuel Menashe says he’s a hermit, but that’s not to say he stays inside. A friend describes him as a flaneur – a serious stroller of the streets.

MENASHE: I’m the oldest person in the house.

REPORTER: Most days, Samuel Menashe still takes the 5 flights of stairs.

He heads out –

MENASHE: Beautiful day, oh my god

REPORTER: For a walk around the neighborhood, or often up to Central Park.

MENASHE: I have nothing to add to this day. I’ll go out on the pier and an old friend of mine, we’re admiring the sunset and she says you should make a poem about it. To receive the beauty of this day is a great privilege. The day is enough, is it not?

Poetry Foundation’s website
Cornelia Street Café