It is inspired by a painting. Aschenblume [1983-97] is a painting by the artist Anselm Kiefer.

A Stolperstein, literally meaning “stumbling stone” in German is a concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi persecution. The stones are placed at the place where the person lived and to date, they have been laid in 22 countries.

Both poems by Jackie Gorman

 

Porajmos is the Roma word for holocaust and its meaning is The Devouring.

by Frances Reilly

barely breathing
the sound of his boots
over her hiding place

huge pile of shoes . . .
their last steps
in Auschwitz-Birkenau

entering the showers . . .
leaving through the chimneys

by Kimberly Kuchar

Bios and Links

Jackie Gorman’s

debut collection “The Wounded Stork” was published in 2019 by the Onslaught Press and was described by Martin Dyar as “an engrossing and ecologically attuned debut.”

 

Kimberly Kuchar

In 2022, Kimberly Kuchar jumped deeper into short-form poetry and waded into collaborative poetry and haibun. Her work has appeared in multiple journals, including Prune Juice Journal, Wales Haiku Journal, Poetry Pea Journal, and Suspect Device. Kimberly lives near Austin with her husband, son, and pet cockatiel.

Twitter handle: @BlueIris5432

Frances Roberts Reilly

has an international profile as a Romani poet and writer. True to the spirit of the Romani diaspora her poems have been published internationally in well regarded anthologies in Canada, U.S., U.K., Wales, Hungary and Germany. She was born on the Welsh border and grew up in England. She’s of mixed-heritage Welsh Gypsy-English, a direct descendant of Abram Wood, the notable family of musicians and storytellers. After making award-winning documentaries on human rights, she earned an Honours degree in English Literature at the University of Toronto.

Her book is Parramisha: A Romani Poetry Collection is published by Cinnamon Press in Wales (2020).