text: Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to `` Strange Fruit '' , a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol , a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx .
simplified: She heard of a song called `` Strange Fruit '' . It was based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol , a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx .