About this episode

Rob Fitterman discusses his poetry and the intersections of history, race, and art.

In episode #32 poet Rob Fitterman reads from and talks about two of his books: Holocaust Museum (Counterpath 2013), made entirely of captions from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s photo archive, and Creve Coeur (Winter Editions 2024), a “translation” of William Carlos Williams’ epic poem Paterson . Following Williams’ form line-by-line, Rob exposes the deep history of anti-Black racism in St. Louis, especially in regards to housing policy. Along the way we discuss his experiences growing up in a lower middle-class Jewish family in suburban St. Louis and his youthful (and continued) fascination with the poetry of “coterie” or group. We revisit the heated conversation around appropriation in poetry and art and consider the “empire-impulse” of some US conceptual poetry. How does “failure hallucinate repair” (Paul Chan’s line)? Why does some art about atrocities elicit a feeling of responsibility and not just empathy? And how might the “I” in a poem be just another “passenger on the bus” and not its driver? Texts, films, videos and people mentioned and discussed: Paul Chan Rob Fitterman reading from Holocaust Museum , Counterpath Denver, 2013 (video) Walter Johnson, The Broken…

People in this episode

Host: Julie Carr

Guest: Rob Fitterman

Topics covered

• poetry
• Holocaust
• anti-Black racism
• housing policy
• appropriation in art
• conceptual poetry
• Jewish identity

Keywords

• Rob Fitterman
• Holocaust Museum
• Creve Coeur
• William Carlos Williams
• anti-Black racism
• appropriation
• conceptual poetry
• Jewish identity

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Counterpath

Books & works: Holocaust Museum, Creve Coeur, Paterson, The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States, The Emancipated Spectator, Holocaust, The Color of Law, Katyn, East St. Louis Massacre

More episodes of Return the Key: Jewish Questions for Everyone

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• Episode 35: “What exactly are we doing here”?: Nishant Upadhyay on settler colonialism and its complexities · May 21, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Episode 33: Neighbor: Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg on Collapse, Entanglement, Spiral Time & Minneapolis 2026 · March 19, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Episode 31: On Money, Lies, and God with Katherine Stewart · February 14, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Episode 30: “Memory of a Larger Mind” with Daniela Naomi Molnar · January 25, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Episode 29: Thresholds: Ava Aviva Avnisan · January 17, 2026 · 1h 4m

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