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XV
Classroom guide and introduction written by author inside. These poems want to blame someone. When the waters are unsettled, who or what is responsible? XV by Zach Goldberg probes concepts of masculinity, love, and trauma through the lens of inheritance. The body is a vessel for history, but what do we do with history? Ignore it? Deny it? Revise it? Heal from it? Poetry. California Interest.
- GenresPoetry
44 pages, Paperback
Published January 11, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
February 23, 2026
A chapbook of poems about family, love, survival, and the heart (literal and metaphorical).
from II. Incantation: "If I know anything about you / (and I do) it's that you didn't lose faith / until the first time you entered a church. / This says more about your sense of humor / than your skepticism, that you once shook / a holy man's hand with your fingers crossed / behind your back."
from IV. The Festival of Near Death Experiences: "see, you can't cheat death / but you can certainly make him work harder. // you can bring you own coffin to the party. / dress up nice, do your makeup // for the mortician, but don't imagine / your poker face is good enough. // death doesn't play. won't cloak / and dagger in the back of the sanctuary. // he's always been exactly what he is."
from X. What the Heart Is: "There's a tremor in my father's voice / when he speaks about the heart. He thinks it / is a shipwreck and the search for survivors / is a lost cause. Call out for the bodies. // When he speaks about the heart, I think of a collection of / a collection of stories, of who passed on / this lost cause and called it a body."
from II. Incantation: "If I know anything about you / (and I do) it's that you didn't lose faith / until the first time you entered a church. / This says more about your sense of humor / than your skepticism, that you once shook / a holy man's hand with your fingers crossed / behind your back."
from IV. The Festival of Near Death Experiences: "see, you can't cheat death / but you can certainly make him work harder. // you can bring you own coffin to the party. / dress up nice, do your makeup // for the mortician, but don't imagine / your poker face is good enough. // death doesn't play. won't cloak / and dagger in the back of the sanctuary. // he's always been exactly what he is."
from X. What the Heart Is: "There's a tremor in my father's voice / when he speaks about the heart. He thinks it / is a shipwreck and the search for survivors / is a lost cause. Call out for the bodies. // When he speaks about the heart, I think of a collection of / a collection of stories, of who passed on / this lost cause and called it a body."
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review