Poetry presentation: Lyn Lifshin, “Being Jewish in a Small Town,” UA 144
Reader: Jennifer Laubach
Respondent: Kristy Rundell      Recorder: Valerie Lawrence
May 13, 2002  

Objective:  Identify aspects of the Immigrant Narrative found in Lifshin’s poetry.

· Stage 3: Shock, resistance, exploitation, and discrimination (here the immigrant experience overlaps with or resembles the minority experience)

· Stage 4: Assimilation to dominant American culture and loss of ethnic identity (departs or differs from minority experience)

Background:  Lyn Lifshin has been noted for her accomplishments a female writer.  She has written more than 100 books and edited four anthologies of women writers.  She has given more than 700 reading across America and has taught poetry and prose writing at several universities, colleges, and high schools.  She won the Jack Karouc award for her book “Kiss the Skin Off,” and has had a documentary film produced about her, “Lyn Lifshin, Not Make of Glass.”  Lifshin has earned the title, “Queen of the Small Presses” for her loyalty to the small presses which first published her.  Ed Sanders has described her as “the modern Emily Dickinson.”

Poems:

Being Jewish in a Small Town

Someone writes kike on

the blackboard and the

“k’s” pull thru the

chalk   stick in my

plump pale thighs

even after the high

school burns down the

word is written in

the ashes    my under

pants elastic snaps

on Main St because

I can’t go to

Pilgrim Fellowship

I’m the one Jewish girl

in town but the 4

Cohen brothers

want blond hair

blowing from their

car   they don’t know

my black braids

smell of almond

I wear my clothes

loose so no one

dreams who I am

will never know

Hebrew  keep a

Christmas tree in

my drawer   in

the dark  my fingers

could be the menorah

that pulls you toward

honey in the snow

After the Anti-Semitic Calls on the Local Talk Show

I want to check

the mirror, see

if I have a Jewish

nose, always glad

for being supposed

Norwegian or French.

Greek once maybe.

Knowing no Hebrew,

growing up in a

town where kids

supposed if you

didn’t go to the

Catholic school you

must be Protestant.

White wasn’t even

a point, feeling

strange in a Jewish

sorority later, not

knowing any Yiddish

past, the rituals

the past, thinking

I was fat and wore

glasses because I

wasn’t Episcopalian

or Methodist or could

confess, thinking my

sister with her Holocaust

books was a little paranoid,

skinny in contact lenses

I’m shaking in front

of all mirrors, glass

as if midnight in

Dresden was now and the

moon caught in a thousand

panes of crystal

was starting

to crack

Interpretation- Being Jewish in a Small Town

            The poem is written in free verse with eight stanzas and four lines per stanza.  It describes the experience of being singled out as a Jewish girl in a small town.  We see examples of Stage 3 of the immigrant narrative throughout the poem.  Her use of the word “kike”  helps to demonstrate the level of discrimination felt by the narrator.

            She also describes her yearning to fit in with everyone else.  Even the Jewish boys do not want to be associated with her.  She describes wanting flowing blond hair which we have seen in other literature this semester.  Having blond hair is a means to fit into the dominant culture.  A way to become accepted.  She also describes how all of her clothes are loose so that no one knows what she really looks like.  This is a way for her to hide, or run away from who and what (Jewish) she really is.

Comparison - After the Anti-Semitic Calls on a Local Talk Show

            This poem is very similar to Being Jewish in a Small Town in that it also describes Lifshin’s issues with being Jewish and fitting in to the dominant culture.  Again, she makes references to not knowing any Hebrew, as if to say that she is too Jewish for the dominant culture, but not Jewish enough for the other Jews.  She tries to assimilate to the dominant culture (Stage 4)  by hiding her “Jewishness.”  

            Conversely, it seems that her sister embraces her Jewish heritage.  She refers to her sister “with her Holocaust books.”  It would appear that on some level she (narrator) is envious of her sister.  The sister is able to accept that she is Jewish, while the narrator does everything in her power to hide the fact that she is Jewish.

Discussion:

First Question:

Jennifer:  What do you make out of the third stanza in Being Jewish in a Small Town?

Terri St. John:  The stanza does not stand alone.  It seems like the third stanza is where it starts.

Dr. White: It kind of makes me think of Mormons; with the ritual underpants.

Terri:  Maybe she’s bent out of shape because she can’t go to the fellowship.

Robin Stone: On Sabbeth, you cannot do any work.  One thing that is work is tearing toilet paper on a roll.  So all of the toilet paper must be torn on Friday.  Also, fastening snaps is work, so a lot of people wear elastic.

Dr. White: Like in the 2000 election, Senator Lieberman would not get in a car on the Jewish Sabbath.

Second Question:

Jennifer:  Do you think that her experience with being discriminated against for being           Jewish influenced her later poetry?  Lifshin is mostly known for her feminist poems, many of express her animosity towards men in great detail.

Julie Sahmel:  If her father is anything like the father in “Bread Givers,” that could be true.

Cristel Ruiz:  The four Jewish brothers want blonde hair.

Jennifer:  And she is not the perfect girl with blonde hair.  Her sister is skinny and has contacts, while she hides behind her glasses and baggy clothes.

Julie: I wonder about the significance of “honey in the snow”

Dr. White:  "Honey from the Rock" is from the Old Testament.

Ginger Cridland:  It seems like she’s making a contradiction.  It seems like she resents the Cohen brothers wanting blonde hair, but the she is hiding herself at the same time.

Cristel:  In the line “fingers could be the menorah: it seems like she is talking about    herself, that she could be that light, the symbol that pulls you towards warmth.         She could be that warmth for the Cohen brothers.

Ginger: “Honey in the snow” could be the desire to be the girl they would want.

Jennifer:  She first emerged in the sixties, and that probably influenced her feminism.  She seems resentful towards the Cohen brothers.

Dr. White:  I chose the poem because she mentions “pilgrim fellowship,” the dominant culture she is excluded form is this pilgrim fellowship.

Jennifer:  I think it’s interesting how in both poems she discusses not knowing Hebrew.  It’s like she starts feeling guilty, she doesn’t remember the names of relatives and            not being Jewish enough, as well as not being a part of the dominant culture.

Dr. White:  Being Jewish does not give her any refuge from the dominant culture.

Chantel Mooneyham:  I thought it was interesting in the last passage with the menorah. It seems like she’s maybe talking about a moth to a flame.

Jennifer:  She has a whole series of poems about insects.