Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp
Aleph Bet
by Sue Rose
Cinnamon Press
Sept 2025, £9.99, 56 pages, ISBN: 978-1-78864-176-0
In her Preface to this enchanting collection, Sue Rose explains that her project took off during the pandemic lockdown when we were all isolated. Having felt “too cool for schul” as a child in a non-observant Jewish household (though her grandfather had been a rabbi), it was a chance to finally explore her Jewish identity, in her solitude, to “reclaim something of my heritage.” With her sister, Rose attended a Zoom Hebrew class.
Soon, she was hooked, charmed by the appearance, the etymology, the symbolism of each letter. The poems started to flow, a tribute to her family and her people. While there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph Bet contains 28 poems, one for each letter – Alef, Bet, Gimmel, Dalet, Heh, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yod, Kaf, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Peh (Feh), Tsade, Qoph, Resh, Shin and Tav – plus six, including the introductory poem, “Aleph Bet,” which sets out the scope of the project:
Divine sequence, first
consonants sounded
by the world’s founder
to banish chaos…
The alphabet, in Sue Rose’s vision, is inherently a part of the creation drama – “in the beginning, bereshit,” as she writes in the poem “Bet.” Bereshit is the name of the first book in the Torah – “Genesis.” Or, as she writes in that first poem, “hammer / and chisel tap-dancing / thought into endurance.” This is the alphabet’s job, creating lasting order.
Rose punctuates her poetry with captivating images of family Jewish artefacts, including prayer books, a tallit (prayer shawl), kippah (her father’s skull cap), a chai necklace she wore as a teen (“chai” means “life,” a word whose numerical value is 18, as it is comprised of the chet and yud, whose values are 8 and 10 respectively), her father’s Haggadah, the book used in the Passover seder, and more.
But the main event is Rose’s wonderful poetry. Each of the poems is one long stanza, meditations on the meaning and appearance of each letter. In her Notes at the end of the sequence, Rose provides fascinating information about the background of each letter, including the numerical value of each, which ranges from 1for the aleph (א) to 400 for the tav (ת). The numerical values of the letters are key to gematria, Jewish numerology. The pictographic origins of the letters are also featured in the Notes, and they, as well as the numerical values and other data, inform Rose’s lyrical poetry. The aleph, for instance, represents an ox, which signifies strength. She begins the aleph poem:
King over breath, mark
of silence in the line,
aleph is mighty, mute.
Shaped from the ox
in the fields, boxy
head, taciturn stare…
One of the pleasures of Aleph Bet, indeed, is examining each Hebrew letter to discern the original idea behind it. The Shin, for example – (ש) – the twenty-first letter of the alphabet, which looks like a three-candle candelabra, whose numerical value is 300, can be seen to symbolize flames. It represents the “sh” sound but also has an “s” sound. Charmingly, Rose writes “Shin blesses
fingers split like Spock
for a tripartite salute
of truce, Shalom
Aleichem, shoring up
its stellar spinoffs
live long and prosper,
peace and long life.
Who doesn’t love the Star Trek reference and the image of Leonard Nimoy flashing that Vulcan sign?
As is evident here, Sue Rose has a sly sense of humor. This is also evident in the poem “Yod,” the Y-sounding letter whose numerical value is 10 (“a yen for ten, that minyan of men / to pray for redemption. / Ten commandments / ten plagues / ten digits…”). She ends the poem:
Hear us yell yada yada
at the deniers’ yammer,
their standing ten count
for the children of Yisrael.
Am I the only one who is reminded of that famous “yada, yada, yada” episode of Seinfeld?
“Daglesh Forte” and “Dagesh Lene” are poems about the dots that direct the vowel sounds of the consonants. These diacritical marks appear in six of the letters – bet, gimmel, dalet, kaf, peh and tav – letters known by the acronym “Begadkefat.” As Rose writes in “Dagesh Lene,” the speck (“black / as a poppy seed”) hardens “the turbulence / of a purr to plosive push.”
The poem “Gutturals” – aleph, heh, chet, ayin and resh – is a short eight-line ode to the letters that originate in the throat, as opposed to the others that are “framed / in the main by tongue and teeth” (i.e., in the mouth) “so dark and deep they stop / the flow of speech as they rise.”
Rose writes of the L-sounding lamed (“the large heart, / lev, of this alphabet”) that it is
propelled from the hollow
of the mouth by press
and release of the tongue…
As with so many of the other letters, her description makes you taste and feel its pronunciation.
One of my favorites is the G-sounding Gimmel, which, as its very sound suggests, resembles the camel – “neck outstretched / on its desert trek.”
On the page, gimmel
stands tall, individual
in motion, big foot
ruled by a big heart…
Rose concludes her meditations on the letters with the final letter of the alphabet, Tav, (ת), in her gorgeously alliterative style – “tail /of this train of thoughts,” writing,
tav is a tag for the end
of the line, the terminal.
But indeed, there is one more poem, which refers to a 13th-century Kabbalistic text which maintains that there is a letter missing from this set of twenty-two, which will only be revealed in the future, with the coming of the Messianic Age of peace and redemption. Rose ends with the prophetic “Unknown.” The beautiful poem reads:
consonant that awaits
revelation in a later world,
this is the missing shape
that will mend the place
of hurt where grief plumes
like a city of debris rent
with sirens. Creator
of new words that turn
wrong to right, repair,
reform, this letter
once heard will chime
its rightness. Enigma
of tongue against palate
or lips kissing breath,
it will rise in thanksgiving
from our depths and press
its utterance to the cheek
of the child who sleeps
through the night’s silence.
Sue Rose’s lyrical style is a delight to read, and Aleph Bet is full of information for the linguistically-inclined.
About the reviewer: Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for Brick House Books in Baltimore and Reviews Editor for The Adirondack Review. His most recent releases are Sparring Partners from Mooonstone Press, Ugler Lee from Kelsay Books, Catastroika from Apprentice House, Presto from Bamboo Dart Press, See What I Mean? from Kelsay Books, The Trapeze of Your Flesh from Blazevox Books, and just out, The Tao According to Calvin Coolidge, published by Kelsay Books.