Poems from Poetry Wales, Poetry Birmingham, Bad Lilies, etc. Not to my taste, though clearly they appeal to others. The first poem ("Tomaszow Lublelski") seems weak to me, even as prose. Her longer poems ("Jewish People in the Area" (4 pages), "Jew" (2 pages), "Going to Bed with Hitler" (6 pages!), "1939" (3 pages)) puzzle me - the linebreaks seem random, the content diluted. "vintage führer" is only 12 words, so why 5 lines? It could be the final line of a good poem - is it really enough for a page?
"Baravia" is 19 couplets. Here are the last (best) 3 - "like the reckless yellow shawl/ passed down// by my grandmother/ who bought it in Switzerland// for the price of a month's wages/ just after the war."
"Tank Taunt" is ok, and except for its strange linebreaks, I like "Yom Kippur".
It's good that there are 4 pages of notes. They're helpful. Poems like "Going to Bed with Hitler" need all the help they can get.
Other reviews
- Jeremy Wikeley (Sometimes I felt the political poems were a little heavy handed ... Saphra, to be clear, does not intend to exclude or dictate; she writes openly (and not a little bravely) about her own uncertain identity. But generalisations are generalisations, and they feel especially pointed when they are packaged as a theme and hooked up to forms which rely on repetition.)
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