Dybbuk Americana

by Joshua Gottlieb-Miller

"How can I teach a prayer / I only know how to recite?" "America, whose death / didn't you come from?" These are some of the questions that poet Joshua Gottlieb-Miller wrestles with in his beautiful, gripping new collection. By turns experimental and documentary, Dybbuk Americana draws out the questions around Jewish identity in the United States, and what it means to pass on Jewish identity to one's child. This hybrid text draws on art, mysticism, and history, taking the dybbuk, a figure from Jewish folklore, as its central metaphor. A dybbuk is a restless spirit who inhabits another's body, and as a possessing spirit the dybbuk is often treated as a demonic force, but it can be read as merely trying to climb the ladder of the afterlife. In other words, a kind of striver. Enacting the idea of competing selves in one body, Dybbuk Americana plays with form via a series of text boxes that create a multi-channel effect on the page. The body of the poem can be read with surrounding and intercutting text boxes to generate multiple interpretations. This innovative poetic technique maintains a dialogue with Jewish literary Talmudic commentary and interpretation of the oral law, as well as the fragmented nature of geniza, a place where Jews store sacred documents when they fall out of use. Dybbuk Americana weaves together the father-son arc within a larger socio-political commentary and historical narrative. Poems move deftly between the ironic and the mystic, from aphoristic questioning and inventive narratives, to interview, oral history, and archival materials. In these lines, "the angels./ They get as close as they can." Witty, curious, warm, and searching, Dybbuk Americana signals a fresh voice in Jewish-American poetry.

[sample text]

CHAIN MIGRATION

It took ten mento make a minyan,

but only one nameof G-d for us to share,

so we settled onAmerica, one by one,

we settled on America,man and woman.

My grandfatherearned his way over

shoveling coalin the hold of a boat.

Grandmother sewedgold into her coat. In secret

they sewed, they sold,they glowed. I dream of

gold. G-d's name in goldmilked and honeyed

in the dustbeneath our boots—

our dust. And when they madea minyan and didn't

realize it? And whenthey married in

and didn't realize it?No they sewed,

they sold, they glowed.Yes, they sold

their solid gold, sold goldinto gold, sewed gold

together into dust.When I was born

they gave mea dead man's name.

But that's truefor everyone.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Hardcover

Published September 17, 2024

Reviews

[Vitória · Rating 4 out of 5]

“America, whose death didn’t you come from?”

That says it all. Period.