Review by Lisa M. Hase-Jackson
Deborah Leipziger’s first full-length collection, Story and Bone, brims with the lyric enthusiasm of one intrigued with word play and musicality as it follows the long tradition of mining one’s own life for inspiration. With heightened attention to the interconnectedness between nature, home, and matrilineal ancestral bonds, Leipziger utilizes both received forms and free verse in a freely-arranged, eclectic collection that, beginning with “Sugaring,” which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Lily Poetry Review, contemplates the definition of home and the essence of one’s origins:
for my Nonna, all deserts began
with recreating home
in a latticework of
marzipan
…
i was born under dictatorship under the light
of the southern cross
dissolving into coconut and clove tangled
in the umbilical cord
Expanding on the definition of home as more than a building where one’s life is contained but also the physical, corporeal body and its familial relationships, too, “What is Home” further presents a list of unlikely, and therefore surprising, metaphors for home:
a house made of kites
and orchids bleeding
…
language and story
color is home.
home is story memory
and the bones I carry
acknowledging, too, that one’s essence cannot be separated from that of one’s ancestors:
Only later did I learn that
my Grandparents sewed gems
into the hems of their clothing
for each border crossing.
By articulating that memories as well as inherited trauma influence interpretations of home, the poet provides an accessible range of imagery with the musicality of a repeated hard ‘c,’ contained in the voiceless velar stops in tandem with the alveolar consonant ‘r’ sound, a juxtaposition that evokes lyric tension, as is similarly crafted, with the addition of sibilance, in “Written on Skin”:
In cursive script your kiss
licked indelibly on skin.
The umbilical cord coiled
around my neck, pulsates on skin.
The forest willow for the violin
music etched on wood, on skin.
The scar from my twins’ birth
echoes the rain, written on skin.
Numbers from Auschwitz
blast-furnaced on skin.
Here, the poet utilizes the repeated refrain “on skin” to establish both musical and tactile rhythm and illuminate intimacy that exists between mother, child, birth, and twin siblings while also calling again on the image of the umbilical cord, that crucial link to life and survival, wrapped around the neck of a new born and endangering the very life it is designed to support. “Written on Skin” also recalls that intergenerational trauma, that is, trauma inherited through genetic changes in a person’s DNA, is inherently linked with one’s origins and sense of home, a recurring theme in this collection.
Interspersed among “still-life” studies, mediations on the body, and an homage to Walt Whitman, Story and Bone also celebrates the domestic interior and sanctity of humble acts in such poems as “Ode to Hand Washing,”
Rinsing,
lingering,
steeples baptized
hands open
this long-awaited lifting of all
that became contaminated.
The concentrate of day,
of summer.
this balm,
this distillation of time
the sacred
ending the day.
My ritual ablution.
A lyrical routine the speaker hopes will counter trauma perpetuated by society’s daily barrage of wounds, injustices, and injuries, particularly at this time of tension within the Jewish community.
As an advisor on sustainability focusing on interdependence, particularly between corporations, human rights, and the environment, Leipziger’s poems pay particular attention to the viability of all experience and its role in reshaping definitions of home, art, and self-identification. Prior to the publication of Story and Bone, Leipziger’s chapbook, Flower Map, was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press.
Story and Bone by Deborah Leipziger
Lily Poetry Review Press, 2024
ISBN 978-1957755106
Lisa M. Hase-Jackson’s debut collection of poetry, Flint and Fire, was selected by Jericho Brown for the 2019 Hilary Tham Capital Collection Series. She holds an MFA in poetry from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and a MA in English from Kansas State University. A full-time writer and Editor in Chief at South 85 Journal, Lisa lives in Charleston, SC with her husband, two cats, and seven chickens.