Jewish Poetry
Songs of a Wanderer
Philip M. Raskin, born in Russia in 1880, was an American immigrant who came to the United states in 1915 and worked for the Jewish National Fund. He wrote 10 volumes of poetry, including Songs of Wanderer, published by the Jewish Publication Society. Songs of a Wanderer has over 100 poems about Raskin's life, focusing on Judaism throughout.
The Jewish Child
He is a child, and yet he is
Much older than his years;
He laughts, but in his laugh is oft
More sadness than in tears.
He frisks and sports, but 'mid his pranks
He stars; and in his face
You read, as in an open book,
The drama of his race.
And in his deep, dark, sparkling eyes
You see his people's doom:
They mirror both bright eastern skies
And northern mist and gloom.
He plays, he capers like a child,
But oft it seems to you
That in a moment he will grow
An old, a wandering Jew.
He frolics, but his very glee
With pathis is entwined;
He's child and man, he's young and old.
He's joy and gloom combined.
Unsettling America
Jennifer and Maria Gillan collected poems of marginalized Americans who have been “othered” in the writing of American history in Unsettled America. This anthology is organized into five sections, titled Uprooting (immigration and relocation), Performing (representation of these cultures in broader American identity), Naming (others labeling a minority’s experience), Negotiating (being American as well as something else), and Re-envisioning (rethinking American identity). Jewish poems are kept in all of these categories, where there is a reoccurring theme on focusing on the past, relatives, and how previous experience and family expectation shape who we become.
Poet Gregg Shapiro’s “Tattoo” talks about the label his grandfather received in the concentration camps. Shapiro communicates what other poets here and other Jews always have; family love their kin so much and hope for the best because of how greatly they themselves suffered. Shapiro writes, “He spreads himself over me, spilling his protection, like acid, until it burns. I wear him like a cloak, sweat under the weight.” I understand that this is not academic writing, and that the sentiment is Shapiro’s individually but this last line speaks volumes. Shapiro is surrounded by his father and his lessons and his life story, as he “wears” him, but also he “sweats under the weight.” Is it too much pressure? Does he wish his past and his heritage were different because of the constant reminders?