Reading Groups: Lynn Melnick's Refusenik
This is the introduction and discussion thread for the reading group on Lynn Melnick’s Refusenik (YesYes Books, 2022)
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A Brief Introduction
I chose Lynn Melnick’s Refusenik because of its courage, risk, and psychological sturdiness. It gives precision and clarity to personal and intergenerational trauma. The poems express what it’s like to live under both misogyny and antisemitism in our current moment. The book uses language to confront all sorts of threats, and to take seriously the idea of risk, vulnerability, and danger.
She has a new memoir, I'VE HAD TO THINK UP A WAY TO SURVIVE: ON TRAUMA, PERSISTENCE, AND DOLLY PARTON
Melnick teaches poetry at Columbia University, Princeton University, and the 92Y.
Guiding Questions:
How does Melnick address sensitive or traumatic topics such as rape or other violence without it turning readers off from the get-go?
The book begins by joining Stalin’s antisemitism with killing off poets, and the current trope of Jews and “globalism.” Do these various historical analogies help or harm your understanding?
How does the book thread the needle between sexual exploitation and anti-Jewish violence?
What comment, if any, does the book make about the issue of assimilation? Is assimilation necessary? Is it possible?