Her Birth and Later Years: New and Collected Poems, 1971-2021
Collected poems of pivotal Jewish lesbian activist
Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry (2023)
Finalist for a National Jewish Book Award, Berru Award for Poetry, in memory of Ruth and Bernie Weinflash (2022)
A trailblazing lesbian poet, child Holocaust survivor, and political activist whose work is deeply informed by socialist values, Irena Klepfisz is a vital and individual American voice. This book is the first complete collection of her work. For fifty years, Klepfisz has written powerful, searching poems about relatives murdered during the war, recent immigrants, a lost Yiddish writer, a Palestinian boy in Gaza, and various people in her life. In her introduction to Klepfisz's A Few Words in the Mother Tongue, Adrienne Rich wrote: "[Klepfisz's] sense of phrase, of line, of the shift of tone, is almost flawless." Her Birth and Later Years was a Finalist for the Jewish Book Award and winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry.
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"This book is an absolute treasure for the readers of Irena Klepfisz, for readers of poetry, lesbian literature, and/or Jewish literature...The poet's voice simultaneously transcends time and is also deeply embedded within it."--Zohar Weiman-Kelman, author of Queer Expectations: A Genealogy of Jewish Women's Poetry
"A profound work of martyrs and lovers. Intimate with history and the natural world, Irena's vibrant intelligence has a vulnerable heart. At every turn, from the cataclysm to the quotidian, a deep desire to connect and reach for truth illuminates and transcends these pages."--Sarah Schulman, author of People in Trouble and Let the Record Show
