The Cartoon & Poem Supplement

"He’s not the rightful king"

Poems:

“Half Hour to Aberdour” by David Biespiel: A Jew journeying through Ireland will always put one in mind of Joyce [ED: Except that the Aberdour in reference is in Scotland, an embarrassing screw-up on my part], and Biespiel’s sometimes hard-to-follow roving eye certainly shows that influence (and its associated anxiety.) Beautiful language – yet its most powerful moment comes when all the gauze is stripped away and the speaker feels like “the last Jew alive” – a fear dredged up from deep in the psyche.