Do Not Return

Description

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Women's Studies. Julia Knobloch has led a peripatetic life, from her native Germany, through years spent in several countries (her time in Buenos Aires inspired many poems here, as well as the cover image), to her current home in Brooklyn, so it comes as no surprise that she would speak in her opening poem of longing, of "expecting to find a home in the space/ between arrivals and departures." It is that "space between" that she probes in these exquisitely rendered, and rending, poems; and, appropriately, the mood of the collection is best expressed by a German word that has no precise English equivalent—Sehnsucht. Her journey through this space takes place across three dimensions of experience. The first is heritage, as the discovery of a forgotten (or suppressed) Jewish ancestor propels her into an examination of her childhood and the embrace of a new identity and faith. The second dimension is geographic, as she negotiates a nomadic life that crosses continents, cultures, and languages. This is her personal time in the wilderness, a time she recognizes may never be ended. The third dimension is the most intimate, as she describes her experience as a woman on her own in the world, traversing the promise and perils of relationships, her unfulfilled desire for a family: "I lost two children before I knew if they were sons or daughters. / I lost my love on the first day of the seventh month. / I lost my laughter in the year that followed." But even if the laughter was lost, her language and her longing remain, and fill these pages with unforgettable emotion. With Sehnsucht.

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