In the Margins of the World
In the Margins of the World received the Hazel Hall- Oregon Book Award in Poetry in 2002.
Find the book here:
Powell’s Books
From the Author
Garrison Keillor reading "Biscuits"
Below is the opening from Katherine Bielewa Stamper's article “Little Details: Anatomy of a Poem” about Willa's poem "Biscuits:"
"I first encountered this poem while driving along I89 towards Burlington. It was 8:35 on some weekday morning and I was listening to Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac on Vermont Public Radio. So taken by the poem, I pulled over when it was safe to jot down the name of the poem and its author. Poetry can truly move us, if we open our ears to just listen."
Testimonials
"These are the poems of a traveler and a lover who feels both the terror of time passing and the consolation of eternity. From such tension spring lovely poetic objects, ready for intelligent use."
Andrei Codrescu
"In an unwavering search for the meaning of contemporary womanhood, Willa Schneberg compresses 5000 years of Jewish history into vivid intricate portraits. Whether writing about middle eastern women restricted by their cultural milieu or relating minute details about her family, these poems act as gentle wake-up calls."
Rochelle Ratner
"In these finely wrought, surprising poems Willa Schneberg seeks connections: between man and woman, woman and woman, Jew and Arab, father and daughter. A far-reaching and moving book."
Ehud Havazelet
GENUINE IMITATION
Give me the fake,
the imitation, the simulation, any day
over the real thing.
Give me the bronze garbage
in Haymarket Square
with the inlaid crumpled Boston Globe,
embedded lettuce leaves,
flattened fish scales,
that will never be burned,
bagged or rotted.
Give me the plaster life size cows
black with white spots
who will not experience
the irritation of flies or
the teat sucking machine.
Give me my daughter's model trains
endlessly circling towns
that have no pollution,
everyone's welcome and whoever’s
sick goes to the doll hospital.
Give me the poem,
its room not even a page wide,
where one enters as often as one likes
to watch the man place quarters
on his dead wife's lids,
to feel the grief not your own.
Reviews & Interviews
“Eavesdropping on the Intimate Soul,” Paul Haist, Jewish Review
Northwest Poetry, Judith Massee, Oregon Poetry Association
"Capturing the Essence of Things: A Conversation with Willa Schneberg" VoiceCatcher Journal