It’s About Representation

Poems

Someone asked why
I’ve written so many
poems about this war.
As a democratic-left
atheist son
of an Auschwitz survivor
I have to try
my imperfect best
to help
in refusing to let
the sociopathic bombing
tactics
of a corrupt
Benjamin Netanyahu
pretend to speak
for universal Jewish thought
to the world.

–Eliot Katz, 2023