What do you think?
Rate this book
Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora
How do we honor our dead and remember where we come from? Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora is a memorial and a map, a pile of stones on the graves of Meghan Sterling's Jewish ancestors. A testament to what is said and what is unsaid, these poems are woven with bits of stories she overheard or invented as a child. Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora braids poems detailing Sterling's life in modern-day America as a secular Jew raising her daughter, named after her beloved grandmother, with poems of her great-grandparents' and grandparents' experiences navigating a new country after fleeing wars across the ocean. In this collection, Sterling offers a glimpse into a fading history.
39 pages, Paperback
Published October 11, 2023
3 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 11, 2025
A chapbook of poems about family, identity, and survival.
from Thief: "I can taste it on my teeth—the only real freedom / is the white page and black pen, the only relief / the wine I've drunk in the middle of the day / that allows me to sleep half the afternoon and / the snow white ice and wind off the river"
from Still Here: "My daughter asks if the sky / will end, and I say yes, it becomes space / outside the earth's skin. She asks if she fell // in space how long would she fall. Only a little bit, / only until ever, until always, falling alongside / all our ghosts who never landed. / We are always / falling a little bit, maybe a lot."
from Thief: "I can taste it on my teeth—the only real freedom / is the white page and black pen, the only relief / the wine I've drunk in the middle of the day / that allows me to sleep half the afternoon and / the snow white ice and wind off the river"
from Still Here: "My daughter asks if the sky / will end, and I say yes, it becomes space / outside the earth's skin. She asks if she fell // in space how long would she fall. Only a little bit, / only until ever, until always, falling alongside / all our ghosts who never landed. / We are always / falling a little bit, maybe a lot."
Displaying 1 of 1 review