Chicken Fat

In Chicken Fat, poet-historian Barbara Krasner reaches into her family history and pulls out visceral stories of Jewish identity, food, and loss that while deeply personal, hold universal appeal. From pleas to Old World grandparents to reminiscences of family vacations in the Catskills, from the Sabbath to the Jewish New Year, from birth to death, this collection of soulful poems recalls connections and disconnections inherent in the circle of life. The poems "Grandma Ruth" and "Because I'm Jewish" earned Honorable Mentions in the Allen Ginsberg awards. A glossary explains Yiddish and Hebrew terms.

About the Author :
Barbara Diane Krasner is an award-winning writer of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for adults and children. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and an MA in History from William Paterson University, where she teaches creative writing, composition, and history. History inspires her poetry, which has appeared in numerous journals, including Nimrod, Paterson Literary Review, Rust + Moth, Jewish Women's Literary Journal, and Blue Lyra Review. She is the author of Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors (Heritage Quest, 2001) and served as contributing editor to History Magazine and two genealogy magazines. She publishes the popular blog, The Whole Megillah

Review :
Barbara Krasner's collection of poems, Chicken Fat, is rich and soulful, redemptive, and full of the soothing spice that makes poetry come alive. She writes about heritage, family, the Jewish experience and identity in a way that is fresh and robust. Her poetry is warm, accessible, and utterly singular in its ability to put you right into the middle of the simmer and let you feel all the spice and 'fat' of the human experience. There is a love in these poems that is tangible. She has mastered the art of the 'living language'--an ability to take very personal moments, the small intimate details of a life, and make them speak to a universal scaffold of truths that anyone can acknowledge. This book is called Chicken Fat but there is nothing excessive here, just the rich and full flavor of poetic voice that is beautifully rendered. Matthew Lippman, author of Salami Jew and The New Year of Yellow In Chicken Fat, Barbara Krasner displays a gift for linking moving memories of her New Jersey Jewish childhood and life with the collective memories of her parents' and grandparents' history of the Jewish ghettos of Eastern Europe. Krasner's narrative poems contain both directness and tenderness as she details family and personal loss as well as a tenacious endurance. She demonstrates a rare gift of describing current and traditional Jewish food (kishka, gribenes, lungen stew) in a way that is not only tantalizes but also provides an ethnic background of this endangered cuisine. Krasner's Chicken Fat is a powerful book of poems that transcends her personal story and connects to her readers with a compelling immediacy. Laura Boss, author of The Best Lover ( New York Quarterly, 2017) and Editor, Lips