"One can find oneself with a reputation for being unreasonably stubborn, my situation from the beginning to the end. . . ." So wrote Carol Rubenstein about her four years gathering, transcribing and translating the poetry and songs of the indigenous people of Sarawak, though it could have been her life's motto. Carol died on September 4 ^th , 2025, stubborn and beautiful as ever. She was 91. Many people living and working in downtown Ithaca would have met her walking, singing, and pausing to chat with friends, acquaintances and strangers. What they might not have known about was her decades of travel and deep commitment to the art of poetry, an art she came to master.

Carol moved to Ithaca in 1989 when the Cornell University Rare and Manuscript Collection requested her archive of the translations and notes of Dayak oral poetry and songs she had made in Borneo between 1971 and 1974. She remained and became a fixture in the local poetry scene.

Carol was born on August 11, 1934, in the Bronx, New York, to a working-class Jewish family. She attended Bennington College until 1953, when she ran off to join a circus. After that she lived and worked in New York, becoming a founding member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1962 as a dancer and choreographer. At this time, she was also writing poetry and participated in the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church. In 1969 she returned to Bennington to complete her degree and then received an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. In 1970 she commenced her years of travel in Asia, receiving a Ford Foundation Grant in 1971 to finance her translations. She spent time in India, where she published a book of poems, The Third Meaning of Apricot ; Pakistan, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo and even Vietnam, where she was met with incredulity as she stepped off the plane into a warzone. Many of these travels are narrated in a 67-page essay she wrote in 1992 and published in Asian Music entitled, The Cultural Show: Is It Culture or What and for Whom , about the significance and impact of turning traditional dance and art into easily digested performances for tourists. The essay is both scholarly and evocative of her many adventures.

In 2004 she received a small grant from the Saltonstall Foundation to finance three trips to Poland to write a long cycle of poems about Auschwitz. Over the years she had many residencies and published in literary journals, including Jacket , Healing Muse , and with Cayuga Lake Books anthologies. She donated paintings by her friend, Dayak artist Jok Bato, to the Kahin Center at Cornell University, where she was resident scholar from 1992-93. The Johnson Art Museum showed Carol's collection of Bato's paintings in 2018.

Carol was quite humble about her travels and accomplishments. Stories would come out at unexpected times. Her friends were surprised to learn after the fact that she had performed at the 60 ^th anniversary of the Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center in 2014.

Carol was a wonderfully eccentric and wayward human being who lived a long life on her own terms. She chose not to marry and aside from a cousin, had no living family. Despite lifelong poverty and a somewhat precarious existence she thrived and brought her joy, sense of humor, great intelligence, and creative insight to her many relationships with friends and neighbors and colleagues. We will all miss her. There will be a celebration of her life on Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 3pm, at Tikkun v'Or (2550 N Triphammer Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850).

Carol's Books and Prizes include:

The Nightbird Sings: Poems and Chants of Sarawak Dayaks (Tynron Press, 1990); The Honey Tree Song: Poems & Chants of Sarawak Dayaks (Ohio State University Press, 1985); The third meaning of apricot, concerning its light (Calcutta Writers Workshop, 1977); The Real Pond (Unbound Art and Fine Books, 1998); Poems of indigenous peoples of Sarawak (Kuching, 1973). Prizes won: Ford Foundation, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Eben Demarest grant, NEA for Literary Translation, Columbia Univ. Translation Award, Saltonstall Foundation Award for Poetry, CAP (Community Arts Partnership, Ithaca, NY) Grant in Poetry.