Vox Populi
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Baruch November: Victor “Young” Perez
The Jewish flyweight from Tunisia—
who modeled himself after the Battling Siki,
a boxer from Senegal—
should have died early in the ring,
Or with a beautiful actress
in a car accident
under torrential rain
on the way to Monaco,
Or of a brain hemorrhage
late in life
deep in his sleep.
“Young” Perez was shot
among birch tree shadows
on the death march
from the labor camp
in Monowitz, where he
made synthetic rubber—
his long right arm stretched
to give a slice of bread
to another Jew.
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Baruch November
Baruch November’s latest book of poems, The Broken Heart is the Master Key, was released in August 2025. He serves as a host and organizer of the Jewish Poetry Reading Series, and he teaches at Touro University in Manhattan.
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Damn.
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Those last lines slay me.
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Me too.
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Horror and goodness. Terrific poem.
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Yes, it is.
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The pace is so inevitable, and the ending so very hopeful in its despair. We are there today, in this roller coaster from what ought to be to what is our new reality. A outstanding poem. I hadn’t read Baruch before.
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Thanks, Rose Mary.
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the beauty of the last image here—
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There is nothing more beautiful than brave compassion.
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I hadn’t heard of Perez either. As history is being retold, poems beautifully keep its truth.
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Poetry began as a way to celebrate the gods and remember the past.
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There are stories that need to be told, lest we forget.
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I agree. I’d never heard of Young Perez until now.
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This poetry of Baruch November (I read them all, somehow having missed his many posts, so reminds me of the Spring pools of Frost— not in their construct of verse, but how and where they take place, as if each of the poems that though in Forests still reflect, the total sky almost with out defect. There is a clarity always taking place in danger of its obliteration in this world and words “that have it in their pent up buds to grow and darken into Summer woods.”
Its a fully developed Art I relish knowledge of herein
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I like Baruch’s clarity as well.
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