Transgenesis
The good poet’s body slowly leaves one sex for another and she wonders what else, if anything, will change—the Jewishness that influences so much of her world; the Holocaust memories of twelve murdered ancestors; love and sex; fear and courage. The recipient of an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, Ava Nathaniel Winter earned an MFA from Ohio State University and a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.This collection was selected for the 2023 National Poetry Series by Sean Hill.
CONFESSION
I am no Jew by Orthodox standards.
My mother, born of Irish-Catholic stock,
never converted and neither have I.
We might pray over the Shabbos lights
but rarely bother to bless the bread.My father insists on the Orthodoxy
of our ancestors, but the midrash
of his youth was Fiddler on the Roof,
while in Slupca, the Yizkor book suggests,
Reform had already taken root.Either way, an immigrant baker’s
eighteen-hour workdays
would leave little time for piety,
so I like to imagine our family
washed their hands of ritual
when they left the shtetl.Still, I worry that I dishonor
my father and my father’s father
by questioning the few stories that survive
when twelve of my great-grandmother’s siblings
did not. You want to confess, Rabbi says,
better you should find a priest.He speaks to me from the small screen
where he’s played by Meryl Streep.
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
