a hearth for Jewish poetry

Xander Gershberg

Birth Year
b. 1994
Current City
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Genre(s)
Poetry, Nonfiction, Fiction, Translation, Literary Criticism
Author’s Website

Biography

Xander Gershberg is a poet, editor, and educator. His poetry appears in FENCEThe Journal, PlumeTAB 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.

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”

Links to Sample Works

The Journal, “Seder Nashim”

Plume, “Grandpa David Told Me Once of Carpathia, a Place He had Never Been”

Poetry Online, “Crime Scene”

Languages of Publication(s) and Poets Translated

Spanish, German

Subject Matter

Antisemitism, Art & Ekphrasis, Cultural Identity, Death, Diaspora, Eastern Europe, Family, Grief & Elegy, History, Intergenerational Trauma, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Mysticism, Jewishness, Love, Midrash, Narrative, Politics, Sexuality, Shoah, Genocide, Trauma, Whiteness, Yiddish Language & Yidishkayt, Multidisciplinary, Visual Art, LGBTQ+, Pop Culture, Documentary Poetics, Mental Illness, Translation, Disability, Race, Violence, Intimacy, Dreams.