Date of Review:

03/07/2008

Published Work:

Reviewer:

Stephen Smith

Source:

Southern Pilot

Review Excerpt:

STEPHEN SMITH: Poetry Looks at Southern Jewish Life

It's not often that the Jewish identity in the South is explored via poetry, but Raleigh writer Maureen A.

Sherbondy -- she's a Metuchen, N.J., transplant -- has employed verse to do just that in "Praying at Coffee

Shops" (Main Street Rag, PO Box 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227, 38 pages, $10).

Her poems are a touch metaphysical, a trifle traditional (there are vestiges of form poems here), and a whole

lot grounded in her faith.

She offers the reader -- the Southern reader in particular -- a fresh vision of life in the context of a world

that's being transformed with dismaying rapidity.

The use of religion to explicate one's identity is hardly new; in fact, it was overused to the point of cliché

during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And in the last 20 years Chuck Sullivan of Charlotte -- a New

Yorker by birth -- has explored the Catholic experience in "Longing for the Harmonies," "A Catechism of

Hearts," and "The Juggler on the Radio."

But no Jewish

poet has focused on the Southern Jewish psyche with Sherbondy's outraged clarity. Take these excerpted

stanzas from "A Jew Contemplates Christmas in the South":

They would tinsel the stars if they could

instead, every Mrs. Is dressed in her glitzy

decorative sweater, sequined in reds and greens

purchased last year at the after-Christmas sale.

Link to Full Review:

http://www.thepilot.com/stories/20080309/books/books/20080309smithpoetry.html