Z-9826

a/n: about my grandmother's experience in Auschwitz during the Holocaust, growing up Romani in Western society, beauty standards... please do not comment on structural choices like &s or lowercase letters. thanks!

This has been in the Green Room much too long for what a great poem it is, so let’s fix that.

Wow, I like the formatting here a lot. I like how you evoke HTML entities for some unknown reason at the end of many lines, with elements like “&western;” or “&beg;” for example. I assume the reference to HTML is intentional. If not, you may want to consider different punctuation for this. But given your reference to hashtags at the end, I’m fairly positive it’s intentional. Nice!

(Hopefully that doesn’t count as “commenting on the &s” which you didn’t want. Sorry if so, but nobody seemed to have picked up on the recurring HTML reference so I wanted to mention it.)

I like the mention of kale a lot, and all that kale represents as an appropriated vegetable.

I adore how you cut off the word “culture” at the end of the ninth line and only let it finish in the tenth, so that it looks like you’re saying cult. It is a cult, after all.

I am quite curious about the origin of the title. Was it perhaps the very serial number an ancestor of yours was tattooed with? I too have ancestry that died in the Holocaust and/or escaped Europe before it was too late.

There’s a slight typo where you write “shoed” and meant to write “shooed”.

Overall, this poem has a wonderful progression and features lovely imagery. I liked it a lot, and the message was insightful and powerful.

Good job!

this is such a powerful poem.. the melding between past and present is so evident. painful and biting deep - absolutely lovely, hope you do napo <3

hi there! welcome back to yws, silk!

I keep reading this poem over and over - it's quite an urgent discussion that I feel most people overlook, or simply don't want to engage with.

I really admire how you've stripped the misunderstood "boho-chic" aesthetic of Romani culture to reveal the history underneath. You've effectively highlighted this grotesque irony of cultural appropriation: the descendant of the oppressor adopts the "aesthetic" of the oppressed because it feels edgy or free, while remaining oblivious to the biological / historical cost of that identity. For instance, he juxtaposition of a child begging for plastic surgery to "look normal" (safe) against a woman now hashtagging that same identity is a great way to show how survival tactics for one generation become adoptable statements for another.

Your imagery is quite dense, but it really complements your themes (whiteness vs. cultural identity, social media, "sanitized" history vs. reality, etc.) here, such as with the phrase "sugar cult / ure asphyxiation," which is particularly striking, to suggest a society that is overly processed and suffocating. I interpreted that line to reference consumerist culture, especially when marketed in a way that further ostracizes a group of people.

^ Though, I feel some sections get a bit muddled because I'm not sure which point you're trying to make against this appropriation. For instance, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Romani women "look in the mirror at the age of 8 & beg God for plastic surgery..." This is a striking image, but it’s somewhat lost in logic. If these women are blonde and blue-eyed, what exactly are they begging to change? Your poem seems to suggest shame about visible Romani traits, but they don’t have them - at least, it isn't written that they have them. Are they ashamed of looking too ethnic, OR are they ashamed of looking too white?

Also, your focus is strong on persecution history but less specific about Romani culture itself. The focus is on what was done to Romani people rather than on who they are beyond victimhood. Is that intentional? I feel like it could be extremely beneficial to further "humanize" Romani culture in the poem to create more of a distance between the perpetrators / embrace your culture.

This is a gorgeous poem though.

best,
cocteau