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.

Poetry
Refusenik: poems
- From the Publisher
September 1, 2021
Discussion Questions

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