Prolific Poet, Pottery Maker William Pillin

William Pillin, known equally for the poems he wrote in a language that was not his own and the pots he fashioned with his artist wife, has died of heart failure. He was 75 and died in a Los Angeles hospital Wednesday.

His verse appeared in more than 100 literary reviews and he published nine collections of poems during his lifetime. The most recent, “Another Dawn,” was published in October.

But he also was known in Los Angeles for his pottery. He and his wife, Polia, produced hundreds of pieces from their home. Pillin would shape and fire the clay and his wife would coat them with colorful Byzantine drawings.

Their work was shown in many galleries and admired by author Henry Miller who noted, “We can sit and dream over each object, as primitive people do.”

Pillin (born Velvel Pillin in the Ukraine) began to write verse when he first learned English after his family fled the persecutions of Russia and Europe and settled in Chicago.

His poetry often reflected the agony of his experiences--a dirge for the grandmother he left in Russia; a diatribe to those who killed his fellow Jews in the concentration camps of World War II; verses of determination as he grappled with the aging process.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Boris.