The Matter of Families

In his latest collection, Robert Deluty explores the many layers that bind us to tradition, faith, customs and, more than anything else, to the people that represent this visceral and often inexplicable connection: our loved-ones, our relatives, our next-of-kin.

Deluty intertwines memories of his ancestors, recollections of moments spent with his wife and children with snippets of fellow yet anonymous Jews he has collected over the years: a joke overheard on the street, a glance caught through the window of a subway train, a thought prompted by an old sign in the neighborhood. The result is an intimate and universal testament to the poet's sense of belonging to both his family and the broader Jewish Family - full of associations, sensations, and devastating, comforting, and unbreakable truths.