Xander Gershberg is a poet, editor, and educator. His poetry appears in FENCE, The Journal, Plume, TAB Journal, Poetry Online, Great River Review, and elsewhere. He previously served as the senior poetry editor at MAYDAY from 2023 to 2025 and currently serves on Spout Press‘s editorial collective. He received his MFA from Virginia Tech.
Xander Gershberg
b. 1994
Current City, State, Country
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Birth City, State, Country
United States
Biography
Published Works
Poems
Fence, “Willi and Frania Escape and Rest at the Rzedzin Apartment, Eastward”
Great River Review, “Autoscopy;” “Autoscopy [Safta];” “Autoscopy [Jewish Museum of Berlin];” “Autoscopy [Prague];” Autoscopy [Krakus Mound, Plaszow]; “Autoscopy [Plaszow]”
The Journal, “Seder Nashim“
Plume, “Grandpa David Told Me Once of Carpathia, a Place He had Never Been”
TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, “Registry [Willi Tannenbaum],” “Registry [Train to Krakow],” “Registry [Travels]”
Midway Journal, “Doikayt“
Inverted Syntax, “Dramatis Personae,” “City Life,” and “The Translator [Alexander 9261994] Speaks”
Strange Horizons, “Codename Beast: a sestina”
Poetry Online, “Crime Scene”
Essays, Reviews, and Interviews
MAYDAY, “Erasure Poetry as Anti-Imperialism: Chris Santiago Reviewed by Xander Gershberg”
MAYDAY, “You’re the Woods Too by Dennis James Sweeney, Review by Xander Gershberg”
the minnesota review, “Writing and Witnessing Ukraine from Diaspora”
the minnesota review, “The Poetics of Fandom: The X-Men Persona Poems of Gary Jackson and Stephanie Burt”
Author Site
Links to Sample Works
Education
Macalester College, BA
Virginia Tech, MFA
Languages of Publication(s) and Poets Translated
Spanish, German
Subject Matter
Antisemitism, Art & Ekphrasis, Cultural Identity, Death, Diaspora, Disability, Documentary Poetics, Dreams, Eastern Europe, Family, Grief & Elegy, History, Intergenerational Trauma, Intimacy, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Mysticism, Jewishness, LGBTQ+, Love, Mental Illness, Midrash, Multidisciplinary, Narrative, Politics, Pop Culture, Race, Sexuality, Shoah, Genocide, Translation, Trauma, Violence, Visual Art, Whiteness, Yiddish Language & Yidishkayt