Reviews
Marge Piercy
"Stairs of Separation" is a vividly researched but above all imaginative entry into the experience of her mother. How few of us ever can come to know our mothers as this poet has managed to do. These are strong poems rooted in the immigrant experience that has led to most of our lives but is often hidden from us in unspoken family histories.
Leah Maines
Shana Ritter's deftly written collection [Stairs of Seperation] is an exquisite journey through excellent poetry, Ritter tells the story of one family from the 1920 wave of Easter European Jewish immigrants who left their small Polish shtetl to sail across teh Atlantic to New York. There is no sentimentality here, just a steady flow of beauty from poem to poem.
C.C.
[In "In The Time of Leaving"] Ritter takes us on a sad but historically accurate tale of abandonment, survival and strength in adversity. Her prose is often filled with poetry as she spins us into her plot... Let’s always remember these stories of unspeakable terror at hands of powerful leaders and vow to never repeat them again.
