Steerage

In Steerage, his series of brilliant, narrative poems about his Jewish ancestors who came to America at the turn of the last century, Robert Cooperman gives us what we need to know to understand the world we live in today with its refugees and immigrants seeking shelter and freedom, and he helps us also understand the stupidity of those who talk about how migrants are poisoning the blood of America.

-John Guzlowski, author of Echoes of Tattered Tongues, Eric Hoffer Award winner

Robert Cooperman has delved into his maternal grandfather's history and created a tender book that follows the early days of the Abramowitz family, recently arrived in New York City from Russia as part of the mass diaspora in the early twentieth century. Poetry works perfectly for the Abramowitz story, which moves through multiple family member perspectives and is richly detailed with history as it follows math whiz Eli and his power-boxer brother Moshe making their somewhat nefarious way on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

-Magdalena Ball, Compulsive Reader