Zaftig

In her exceptional debutcollection of poems, Molly Raynor welcomes you to sit at the table with her ancestors, mothers, sisters, friends, and wild women, as she glues together moving memories of waxy-lipped kisses, and potato peel dresses. Ghosts of the old country, lost loves, and the unborn haunt ZAFTIG. Raynor’s poems are imbued with deep Judaic traditions, and a sprinkle of Yiddish. They burst forth with sensuality, survival, and the push-pull of women’s bodies as coveted flesh. Braiding together words like bread to lay on the table in honor of the beauty & the terror of living, these poems breathe new life. Inspired by the past, but firmly planted in the present, ZAFTIG joyfully takes up space like the powerful women who fill Raynor’s heart and words.