In this sear­ing new vol­ume, Lynn Mel­nick dives head-first through con­cen­tric waves of per­son­al and gen­er­a­tional trau­ma with her trade­mark fear less­ness. Evinc­ing a com­plex mind shaped by the late 20th century’s mis­placed pri­or­i­ties, Refusenik inter­ro­gates misog­y­ny and anti­semitism across time and a shift­ing glob­al land­scape — from a foot­ball field in Los Ange­les to a Russ­ian shtetl to a beloved daughter’s Brook­lyn bed­room. Var­i­ous­ly unrav­el­ing and allow­ing for intri­cate tan­gles of anger, nos­tal­gia and love, these agile poems fur­row deep­er into the ter­rain of Melnick’s much-cel­e­brat­ed ear­li­er titles, arriv­ing at a pro­found and pres­sured under­stand­ing of what it means to be a con­tem­po­rary American.