THE SHORT FALL FROM GRACE

WINNER OF THE 2005 BLUE LIGHT BOOK AWARD Stewart Florsheim was born in New York City, the son of refugees from Hitler's Germany. He has received several awards for his poetry and has been widely published in magazines and anthologies. He was the editor of Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaust survivors (Wayne State University Press, 1989). He wrote the poetry chapbook, The Girl Eating Oysters (2River, 2004). He also writes non-fiction. Stewart's day job is in the technical writing field. He also sits on the board of directors of Compassion and Choices of Northern California, an organization that helps the terminally ill make end-of-life decisions. Stewart lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, two daughters, and dog. The following poems appeared in Round Table, 1986: "The Girl Eating Oysters," "The Jewish Singles Event," "The Best Bread in Montparnasse" "The Jewish Singles Event" appeared in Ghosts of the Holocaust (Wayne State University Press, 1989) and in Unsettling America: Race and Ethnicity in Contemporary American Poetry (Viking Penguin, 1994) "The Kitchen Sink" appeared in Karamu, 1993 (under the title, "The Hotel Albert, 1969") and in Slipstream 19, 1999 "My Father's Autopsy" appeared in DoubleTake, 2:4, Fall, 1996 "Recent Findings, 1996" appeared in And What Rough Beast: Poems at the End of the Century (under the title, "Recent Findings") (The Ashland Poetry Press, 1999) "The Only Jew in Oswiecim" appeared in Poetry on the Akeda as Modern Midrash by Rabbi Steven Chester, 1999 "Exposed" appeared in Rattle 14, 2000 "Thirst" appeared in 88, A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, Issue 1, December, 2001 and Compassion and Choices Magazine, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring, 2005 "Survival" appeared in the Seatttle Review Volume XXV, Number 1, 2002 "Retribution" appeared in Poetica, 2003 "Initiation" and "The Unseen" appeared in Full Circle, Volume 1, Issue 6, 2003 "Mr. S" and "Once, After Swimming" appeared in The 2River View, Winter 8.2, 2004