|
Rota’s experience and his political theology as a Jewish person in the modern political context.
|
Wild Pressed Books is thrilled and privileged to have been entrusted with “Giveth and Taketh”, a selection of poems exploring the Jewish experience in the present and throughout history.
Rota is a poet and public interest lawyer living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His work has been featured by Button Poetry, Entropy! (forthcoming), FreezeRay Poetry, Alternating Current (forthcoming), Jet Fuel Review, and elsewhere. He is a proud member of the MMPR collective and the Assistant Executive Editor of Knights' Library Magazine. By day, he supervises law students who provide free legal services to veterans. You can't miss him. He's the tallest Jew for miles.
"Giveth and Taketh," tracks both Rota’s experience and his political theology as a Jewish person in the modern political context. While it addresses the Trump administration head-on, this collection of poems also explores issues of whiteness, mental health, and grief.
Rota is a poet and public interest lawyer living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His work has been featured by Button Poetry, Entropy! (forthcoming), FreezeRay Poetry, Alternating Current (forthcoming), Jet Fuel Review, and elsewhere. He is a proud member of the MMPR collective and the Assistant Executive Editor of Knights' Library Magazine. By day, he supervises law students who provide free legal services to veterans. You can't miss him. He's the tallest Jew for miles.
"Giveth and Taketh," tracks both Rota’s experience and his political theology as a Jewish person in the modern political context. While it addresses the Trump administration head-on, this collection of poems also explores issues of whiteness, mental health, and grief.
|
Here’s a sample of this meaningful and topical collection, due out at the end of March.
|
While Contemplating School Ties in a DC Airport without Air Conditioning
The tram in the Ronald Reagan National Airport is hotter than
the shower scene in School Ties, where we can be forgiven
for missing the swastika on the wall because, in the foreground,
are a topless Matt Damon and Chris O’Donnell, as if to say
this is how dirty Nazis get clean. (And, of course, like
any Jewish man, I fantasize about being portrayed by a young
and glistening Brendan Frazier while facing harassment
from a strapping gaggle of sexy neo-fascists.)
Meanwhile, I swipe through my bad news machine and learn the President just tweeted
that Rashida Tlaib should go back to her native land. Which confirms what we already know
That the Donald is just an uglier version of his KKK father
That the whipping branch never falls far from the poplar tree
And/or that the Commander in Chief of the American military thinks Detroit is a country.
The point is: it’s hard to say why I’m sweating.
Political outrage? Bizarre Semitic-Brendan-Frazier fantasies? The fact that this train feels like it travelled through the literal fires of hell en route to the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport baggage claim? Global warming? The District’s transformation from a balmy swamp to a blazing Tiki torch?
The anxious realization all of these explanations are basically saying the same thing?
That America is straddling the thinning moat between furnace and gas chamber.
That amidst enough hot air, a dog whistle starts to sound like a fire alarm.
That it’s hard not to wonder where we’ll start routing our trains.
No one wins in this heat. We’re all stuck here and sweltering.
The lucky ones get clean water to wash off the sweat. The lucky ones get trains
where the doors open. The President tells us we’ll be safe as long as we stick with him,
tries to play anti-Semitism like a clarinet but sounds like a kazoo.
Claims the Congresswoman hates us because her people are from the desert.
But so are mine. And between the Muslim legislator from Detroit
and the man wearing Richard Spencer’s back hair as a toupee,
it gets pretty easy to figure who’s the fellow religious minority
and who’s the prep school Nazi. So maybe it’s not the heat.
Heat is only Hell to the deserving.
Heat is only Hell to those with no escape.
Maybe it’s not the heat. Maybe it’s the driver.
Maybe it’s time to flood the cockpit. Jump the track.
And burn everything down.
The tram in the Ronald Reagan National Airport is hotter than
the shower scene in School Ties, where we can be forgiven
for missing the swastika on the wall because, in the foreground,
are a topless Matt Damon and Chris O’Donnell, as if to say
this is how dirty Nazis get clean. (And, of course, like
any Jewish man, I fantasize about being portrayed by a young
and glistening Brendan Frazier while facing harassment
from a strapping gaggle of sexy neo-fascists.)
Meanwhile, I swipe through my bad news machine and learn the President just tweeted
that Rashida Tlaib should go back to her native land. Which confirms what we already know
That the Donald is just an uglier version of his KKK father
That the whipping branch never falls far from the poplar tree
And/or that the Commander in Chief of the American military thinks Detroit is a country.
The point is: it’s hard to say why I’m sweating.
Political outrage? Bizarre Semitic-Brendan-Frazier fantasies? The fact that this train feels like it travelled through the literal fires of hell en route to the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport baggage claim? Global warming? The District’s transformation from a balmy swamp to a blazing Tiki torch?
The anxious realization all of these explanations are basically saying the same thing?
That America is straddling the thinning moat between furnace and gas chamber.
That amidst enough hot air, a dog whistle starts to sound like a fire alarm.
That it’s hard not to wonder where we’ll start routing our trains.
No one wins in this heat. We’re all stuck here and sweltering.
The lucky ones get clean water to wash off the sweat. The lucky ones get trains
where the doors open. The President tells us we’ll be safe as long as we stick with him,
tries to play anti-Semitism like a clarinet but sounds like a kazoo.
Claims the Congresswoman hates us because her people are from the desert.
But so are mine. And between the Muslim legislator from Detroit
and the man wearing Richard Spencer’s back hair as a toupee,
it gets pretty easy to figure who’s the fellow religious minority
and who’s the prep school Nazi. So maybe it’s not the heat.
Heat is only Hell to the deserving.
Heat is only Hell to those with no escape.
Maybe it’s not the heat. Maybe it’s the driver.
Maybe it’s time to flood the cockpit. Jump the track.
And burn everything down.