Deborah Bacharach’s very contemporary book of poetry uses references to biblical stories in order to illuminate the relationships between men and women, their difficulties and complications. It’s a bold book of loss and survival, betrayal and love, a book about work and about humanity. Abraham and Sarah are here, as well as Lot and his wife, Hagar, Potiphar, and others. Modern-day lovers are here too, along with struggles and satisfactions that are universal.
The God of Debby Bacharach’s Shake & Tremor wears black leather boots and shaves her head on the day she destroys Soddom and Gammorah-she’s that kind of God. But she’s also all about doing her work-women’s work, which is the work of this book, which means: love and survive. Bacharach builds this book of allegories about the contemporary complications of romantic and sexual relationships around the stories of wives: Sarah and Hagar, Lot’s wife, Potiphar’s wife. But it also is a book of revelations and angels-if by angels you mean what Bacharach’s Hagar means: “Angel is the word I say when I mean/strength of will.”
