Staff Pick
These poems paint a grappling portrait of life in Southern Appalachia. Meitner tackles religion, violence, racial tensions, and motherhood, all with ever-present empathy and nuance. This collection is a timely and necessary addition to any poetry lover's library. Recommended By Haley B., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Erika Meitner's fifth collection of poetry plumbs human resilience and grit in the face of disaster, loss, and uncertainty. These narrative poems take readers into the heart of southern Appalachia--its highways and strip malls and gun culture, its fragility and danger--as the speaker wrestles with what it means to be the only Jewish family in an Evangelical neighborhood and the anxieties of raising one white son and one black son amidst racial tensions and school lockdown drills. With a firm hand on the pulse of the uncertainty at the heart of 21st century America and a refusal to settle for easy answers, Meitner's poems embrace life in an increasingly fractured society and never stop asking what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Synopsis
An Entropy Best Poetry Book of 2018
Erika Meitner's fifth collection of poetry plumbs human resilience and grit in the face of disaster, loss, and uncertainty. These narrative poems take readers into the heart of southern Appalachia--its highways and strip malls and gun culture, its fragility and danger--as the speaker wrestles with what it means to be the only Jewish family in an Evangelical neighborhood and the anxieties of raising one white son and one black son amidst racial tensions and school lockdown drills. With a firm hand on the pulse of the uncertainty at the heart of 21st century America and a refusal to settle for easy answers, Meitner's poems embrace life in an increasingly fractured society and never stop asking what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Synopsis
Winner of the 2018 National Jewish Book Award for Poetry
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
Erika Meitner's fifth collection of poetry plumbs human resilience and grit in the face of disaster, loss, and uncertainty. These narrative poems take readers into the heart of southern Appalachia--its highways and strip malls and gun culture, its fragility and danger--as the speaker wrestles with what it means to be the only Jewish family in an Evangelical neighborhood and the anxieties of raising one white son and one black son amidst racial tensions and school lockdown drills. With a firm hand on the pulse of the uncertainty at the heart of 21st century America and a refusal to settle for easy answers, Meitner's poems embrace life in an increasingly fractured society and never stop asking what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Synopsis
An unflinching, open-hearted inquiry that encompasses religion, disaster, resilience, infertility, adoption, parenthood, and what it means to love one's neighbor.