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Overview
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780819501080 |
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Publisher: | Wesleyan University Press |
Publication date: | 01/09/2024 |
Series: | Wesleyan Poetry Series |
Pages: | 296 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Early Work (1971)
Searching for my Father's Body 3
The Widow and Daughter 7
From periods of stress (1975)
I
During the war 13
P o w s 14
Herr captain 15
Death camp 17
About my father 18
Perspectives on the second world war 19
II
Conditions 22
Periods of stress 24
Please don't touch me 25
Dinosaurs and larger issues 27
When the heart fails 34
It was good 36
Flesh is cold 36
They're always curious 37
They did not build wings for them 38
The fish 41
III
In between 44
The house 45
Blending 48
Edges 49
IV
Aesthetic distance 56
Self-dialogues 57
Two Sisters: Helen and Eva Hesse (1978)
An Introduction 63
Two Sisters: A Monologue 65
Keeper of Accounts (1982)
I From the Monkey House and Other Cages
Monkey 1 76
Monkey 2 87
II Different Enclosures
Contexts 98
Work Sonnets/with Notes and a Monolgue about a Dialogue
I Work Sonnets 104
II Notes 113
III A Monologue about a Dialogue 115
A Poem for Judy/beginning a new job 118
III Urban Flowers
Mnemonic Devices: Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, 1981 122
Royal Pearl 124
Lithops 125
Aesthetics 126
Winter Light 127
Oleander 128
Cactus 129
Abutilon in Bloom 130
IV Inhospitable Soil
Glimpses of the Outside
A place 132
A visit 136
A place in time 140
Mourning 143
Bashert
These words are dedicated to those who died 145
These words are dedicated to those who survived 147
1 Poland, 1944: My mother is walking down a road 148
2 Chicago, 1964: I am walking home alone at midnight 150
3 Brooklyn, 1971: I am almost equidistant from two continents 153
4 Cherry Plain, 1981: I have become a keeper of accounts 156
Solitary Acts 159
A Few Words in the Mother Tongue (1983-1990)
I cannot swim 171
Di rayze aheym/The journey home
1 Der fentster/The window 174
2 Vider a mol/Once again 175
3 Zi flit/She flies 176
4 A beys-oylem/A cemetery 177
5 Kashes/Questions 178
6 Zi shemt zihk/She is ashamed 179
7 In der fremd/Among strangers 180
8 Di tsung/The tongue 181
9 Di rayze aheym/The journey home 182
Etlekhe verier oyf mame-loshn/A few words in the mother tongue 183
Fradel Schtok 186
Der mames shabosim/My Mother's Sabbath Days 188
'67 Remembered 190
Warsaw, 1983: Umschlagplatz 193
East Jerusalem, 1987: Bet Shalom (House of Peace) 195
Her Birth and Later Years (1990-2021)
Footnotes
March 1939: Warsaw, Poland 202
Warsaw, 1941: The story of her birth 204
Pesakh: Reynolda Gardens, Winston-Salem
1 Winter 210
2 Spring 211
3 The seder table 212
Mitsrayim: Goat Dream 213
Der soyne/The Enemy: An Interview in Gaza 216
In memory of Razan al-Najjar 217
Instructions of the dying elder … 221
Dearest Friend: Regarding Esther Frumkin 224
Millet's Flight of Crows
Five ways to view a drawing 228
Mourning Cycle
Parsing the question 234
This House 235
Liberation of the roses 237
Trees 238
Wound: a memory 239
Wind chime 240
Grief changes and doesn't 241
Entering the stream 242
Between shadow and night: a treatise on loneliness 243
And Death Is Always with Us
For Jean Swallow: whom I barely knew 250
My mother at 99: Looking for home 253
My mother's loveseat 255
July 22: Geology 256
Jamaica Wildlife Preserve: September 258
From The old poet cycle
The old poet reconsiders acting 260
The old poet tries unsuccessfully to bring chaos back into her order 262
The old poet and Orion 263
The old poet's become tired 264
The old poet remembers the immigrant girl 265
Grief: Brunswick Public Library Maine 267
Der fremder in derfremd 269
Acknowledgments 271
Glossary 273
Notes 275
Index of titles 277
What People are Saying About This
"In terrible times poetry comforts, challenges, and sustains. Irena Klepfisz has been doing all these through the decades. With this book she gives us an enormous measure of grace. It is evidence of the work done to change the world—a vision of and commitment to justice in the largest sense. We are fortunate, all of us, to have it."—Dorothy Allison, author of Cavedweller
"This book is an absolute treasure for the readers of Irena Klepfisz, for readers of poetry, lesbian literature, and/or Jewish literature...The poet's voice simultaneously transcends time and is also deeply embedded within it."—Zohar Weiman-Kelman, author of Queer Expectations: A Genealogy of Jewish Women's Poetry