Reviewed by L. Lois
Dear Palestine
by Emma Goldman-Sherman
Moonstone Press
Jan 2026, US$11, ISBN: 9781970590104
Emma Goldman-Sherman refuses ignorance and absolution in the unwinding of an American-Jewish story — a personal story, looking for peace but finding only violence and failure.
I could see myself reflected in the glass. (“A Few Things Palestinians Say to Me in 1993”)
With deft weaving, Dear Palestine is a chapbook poetry collection piecing together tales of misplaced justice. It is the story of the one who must run to escape, who works out their faith along the way, who doesn’t always realize when the future is unfolding. Poems emerge from Eastern Europe to the Northeastern United States, and branch off to Zionist Israel. This is Jewish Philadelphia talking to the Israeli occupation — Goldman-Sherman takes on the first Intifada and the haunting of the Holocaust, while driving the whole straight into today’s Gazan genocide.
Imagine the mouths / of stones sounding / the sufferings / of the land, the pains / of sisters, last breaths / of soldiers, every war / a scar on the walls. (“Dome of the Rock”)
A queer, neurodivergent poet with a feathered pen, Goldman-Sherman uses beauty to reveal harsh truth. Lines set the stage quickly, then provide a play-by-play for the irony exposed, the reality of how the hurting hurt. A family broken cannot see that breaking Palestine won’t heal anyone’s wounds. Still, there is a remanent, alongside the poet’s voice from within, crying out in the language of being human:
how long i long to reach the top to stand with you / in our mothers’ dresses to move this mountain / to song to name our vision peace to feed (“Echo of My Sister’s Voice”)
This collection follows Goldman-Sherman through a family’s immigrant past. We fly to Israel where a distant and abusive father builds houses for Zionist settlers in an act of misplaced devotion. We lament alongside Goldman-Sherman and Arab friends: two wrongs can’t make things right. And there is only, ever, more dying. Ahmed is gone but the bullets that riddled the neighborhood’s insides left cracks in stone walls. Into these cracks, scrawled poetry prayers might be pressed. It’s this brave retelling, full of bitter tears, that we recognize as our own.
Goldman-Sherman is a poet uniquely able to identify with the oppressed, knowing what it is to be controlled, fed lies while vulnerable, and used at the pleasure of another. If family can hurt family, it is because Abraham’s sons continue to live and die. Philadelphia can only survive and bear a courageous witness, sharing in ways the reader won’t easily forget.
Once the sun / set, no one could visit. No one could go out. (“A Few Things Palestinians Say to Me in 1993”)
Dear Palestine arrived in late winter 2026 from Moonstone Press. This chapbook is an active demonstration of support for those protesting the Gazan genocide. Think about donating a copy to your local library, as a tangible and grassroots response to the forces of censorship and violence in Philadelphia…and Jerusalem. This collection demands that its lyrical and honest spirit be consumed and spread. Goldman-Sherman is a fearless, up-and-coming poet to watch.
About the reviewer: L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting into her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies, while prioritizing writing, publication, and arts-related volunteerism. Her poems have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, The Brussels Review, Washington Square Review, Hanging Loose Magazine, Chiron Review, Poetry Breakfast, among other publications. L. Lois is an Associate Member of the League of Canadian Poets, is part of the editorial team at Quibble Lit, and freelances as a business feature writer and poetry workshop leader. A selection of her published work is linked at https://poeting.my.canva.site.