The poems in Birthright embody multiple legacies: genetic, historical, religious, and literary. Through the lens of one person’s experience of inheritance, they suggest ways in which all of us may be influenced in how we perceive and process our lives and times. Here, a poet claims what is hers as a child of her particular parents; as a grandchild of refugees from Nazi Germany; as a Jew, a woman, a Gen Xer, and a New Yorker; as a reader of the Bible, Shakespeare, Flaubert, and Lucille Clifton. This poet’s birthright is as unique as her DNA. But it resonates far beyond herself.

Wife, mother, nurse—these words invoke the vision of a woman giving of herself to sustain another with love, tenderness, care. Written in the voice of a military nurse, Nursewifery, speaks from the perspective of a woman whose job and gender prime her to view acts of nurturing as the highest of callings. The poems explore the way feminine roles both fit and restrict. Like the sutures that close a wound, this collection seeks to find a new way to envision acts of care, healing, and a woman’s capacity.

In 1969, attorneys at California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) discovered California public schools were misusing English-language, culturally biased IQ tests to place Spanish-speaking students into EMR classes. Additionally, Mexican-American children were not the only minorities impacted. Written by two of the attorneys who led the charge against the denial of education to Mexican-American youth, this book recounts the history of both the CRLA and the class-action suit filed in 1970  on behalf of 13,000 Hispanic kids already placed in EMR classes and another 100,000 at risk of being relegated to a virtual purgatory.