About me:
A lifetime New Yorker (and someone who loved living there) three years ago Julie retired and moved with her husband to Doylestown, in Bucks County, Pa. While she totally enjoyed her weekends in Doylestown, leaving life in New York was a big deal.
Especially the poetry workshops she participated in with poets Jeanne Marie Beaumont Estha Weiner, Sarah White, Alan Walowitz, Bo Niles, and many more.
She found a writing workshop with River Heron Review which led to a large group of poets who had the good fortune to workshop with the late Chris Bursk through the Bucks County Community College. And then Covid hit. Dr. Bursk’s workshop went online, and that led to other workshops: Marie Kane’s Kitchen Table (KT) and The Stalwart Poets Gather group. She found a home. A place to write. Thrive. Like breathing, she hopes it will continue for a long time.
The following poem gives a little more insight:
Born in Brooklyn
but bred on the streets of Queens
in a compact square ranch house with mustard
aluminum siding and a large white awning
that covered the patio out back. The first house
to have outdoor speakers.
I am from the weeping willow tree by the pool
and the birch trees that lined their way to the kitchen
side door.
I am from minimal faith, free of obligation
along with a dedicated line of dementia—Nellie,
Helen and Evelyn—people who lost
most of their memories but didn’t know it
and a grandmother who often requested:
remember me.
I come from a line of tailors, seamstresses
and furriers. I own their three sewing machines
and yet cannot thread a bobbin.
I am from patriotic parents who insisted I too
Stand up and salute no matter what.
Question little, follow doctor’s directions,
marry later, but not too late to have a couple of kids.
Born in Brooklyn, I came from J&B (aka Jewish
Booze) with Sunday morning bagels.
From the long line of headstones at Cedar Park
Cemetery, the shared names, the secret suicides,
(they married into the family, so no worries),
and the No Exit sign at the corner of Block 5.
I am from the keepers of silver spoons
and ceramic shoes, the inheritor of buttons,
a glass ibex, the champleve vase and cartons
and cartons of black and white photos
that lie in rest, on metal shelves,
in the back room of the basement.
I am what’s left of all of them.
Available Books for Purchase
Memsahib Memoirs, Plan B Press, 2017
Available from the author
Forsaken Little Black Book
published by Kelsay Books (kelsaybooks.com)
Available from the publisher and Amazon.com
Finalist in the 2023 Medal Provocateur/Eric Hoffer Award
THRILLED to see this poem of mine in One Art!
The Immigrant by Julie Standig
The Immigrant
My aunt’s apartment on Surf Avenue
was immaculate. I thought.
Until I had to clean it out. Shopping bags
overfilled, one on top of another—
in every closet, pantry, and storage bin.
I discovered old bank statements,
official letters from Germany—in German.
Letters from unknown-to-us people,
written in Polish.
Letters from Israel,
written in Hebrew.
Letters from lawyers that testified
what was taken, when, how much.
Her ketubah from Bergen Belson.
The linen closet was stuffed with towels,
and between those towels, more letters.
One took our breath away
They took the kinder, put them on a train.
We knew we would not see them again.
They took her father’s shoe factory.
They took the silver. The china.
Her hair. They sterilized her at Block 10.
They took her baby boy.
The bedroom closet was packed with racks
of shoes. Row after row after row.
A pair of slippers trimmed in fur. Size 5.
My aunt had small feet.
I clutched her nut-brown sweater to my heart.
It was the same one she wore
for her immigration photo.
She kept everything. And I unearthed it.
Stashed in a night-table drawer—
an evergreen marbled notebook
on dictation and grammar,
two accordion-folded rain bonnets,
in plastic sleeves with the ILGWU* stamp.
Small paperbacks:
Geography (for 7th and 8th grade)
Spelling
Mathematics
The D.A.R. Manual for Citizenship
And her porcelain plate with FDR
and Churchill’s side-by-side faces.
Written on the bottom—For Democracy.
*International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).
RAT’S ASS REVIEW/SPRING/SUMMER 2025
Happy to have two recent and more ‘fun’ poems included: https://ratsassreview.net/?page_id=4408#Standig2
POETRY SUPER HIGHWAY choose me to be one of their poets of the week.
And with one of my favorite poems! Thanks again Rick Lupert
Rat’s Ass Review Fall 2024–check out my two fun poems!
Proud to have this in Silver Birch Press blog!
https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2023/12/tacky-tinsel-stuff.html
Julie Tepper Standig 