THE SHORT FALL FROM GRACE

WINNER OF THE 2005 BLUE LIGHT BOOK AWARD

Stewart Florsheim was born in New York City, the son ofrefugees from Hitler's Germany. He has received severalawards for his poetry and has been widely published inmagazines and anthologies. He was the editor of Ghosts of theHolocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaustsurvivors (Wayne State University Press, 1989). He wrote thepoetry chapbook, The Girl Eating Oysters (2River, 2004). He alsowrites non-fiction. Stewart's day job is in the technical writingfield. He also sits on the board of directors of Compassion andChoices of Northern California, an organization that helps theterminally ill make end-of-life decisions. Stewart lives in the SanFrancisco Bay Area with his wife, two daughters, and dog.

~~~~~ The following poems appeared in Round Table, 1986: "The GirlEating Oysters," "The Jewish Singles Event," "The Best Breadin 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 (VikingPenguin, 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, "RecentFindings") (The Ashland Poetry Press, 1999)

"The Only Jew in Oswiecim" appeared in Poetry on the Akeda asModern Midrash by Rabbi Steven Chester, 1999

"Exposed" appeared in Rattle 14, 2000

"Thirst" appeared in 88, A Journal of Contemporary AmericanPoetry, Issue 1, December, 2001 and Compassion and ChoicesMagazine, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring, 2005

"Survival" appeared in the Seatttle Review Volume XXV, Number1, 2002

"Retribution" appeared in Poetica, 2003

"Initiation" and "The Unseen" appeared in Full Circle, Volume1, Issue 6, 2003

"Mr. S" and "Once, After Swimming" appeared in The 2RiverView, Winter 8.2, 2004