Learning Reconciliation from My Great-Grandmother’s Poetry

After my great-grandmother, Miriam Borgenicht, died, my family compiled a loose collection of her poetry and sent typed-up and ring-bound copies to each of her grandchildren. Miriam was a prolific mystery author until the actual day of her death, and wrote poems as gifts and commemorations for her family and friends. She was a fierce activist, marching for civil rights, nuclear disarmament, public transportation, the end of U.S. imperialism. She was brilliant, she was rude, she played favorites, she made enemies. Her fraught memory hangs in the air every time my extended family argues. It’s in the air a lot.

The first time my mother showed me that book, she said, “Don’t try to look for me in there. My grandmother hated me.” 

The book confused and disturbed me as a child. Just as my mother had warned, the “Poems for Grandchildren” section had notable gaps. Other sections were full of nods to Miriam’s favoritism and past arguments that had plagued the family. The book represented the dark underbelly of my family, the cruel tendencies and longstanding grudges that they joked about amongst themselves but covered up for the kids. But reading it now, I see it differently. Miriam’s poems are witty, sardonic, lively, and technically tight. They reveal that it is that darker, dysfunctional side that makes my family what it is: radical Jewish intellectuals with little filter or timidness. Every time we argue, yell, or seethe, we become more like each other, and the more like each other we are, the more we know who we are. Miriam’s bitingly, brilliantly Jewish book is a portrait of a fractured family with a united sense of self.

A few weeks ago, I saw Sarah Schulman (a lesbian, Jewish writer and activist idol of mine) give a reading from her new book, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity. She talked about her work with ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, a grassroots group committed to ending the AIDS crisis through direct action), and how the organization protected itself from factioning. When members disagreed on strategies or methods, they were able to each carry out their own plans while staying united in their goals. This led to bitter arguments and personal quarrels. But the organization stayed together because these disagreements were embraced, rather than feared. “Even the people I hated, I love,” Schulman said of her ACT UP comrades. “Because we changed the world.” 

Seeing Schulman speak, I thought of my own activist movements, and how much they stood to learn from ACT UP. But I also thought of my family. 

My extended family squabbles and feuds to no end. Shouting arguments break out at least four times per family gathering, and sometimes those gatherings don’t even happen for years. But at the end of the day, Miriam’s legacy lives on. My great-uncles are public interest lawyers, and my great-aunts and grandmother are at the forefront of the women’s studies movement. My mother, who was dismissed by Miriam at every turn, became the family’s next novelist. There’s an essay about Miriam at the back of her first novel. And even though Miriam died years before I was born, her writing fuels me now. (Could you tell?) 

My family is divided, divisive, and tough to be around sometimes. But as we go about our radical, creative, intellectual lives, we are always supported by a current of love. In the compilation of eulogies tucked at the end of Miriam’s book, there’s a mention of the fact that her children—several of whom are not presently speaking to one another—never once fought during the five months they cared for their mother together. Miriam’s legacy is keeping us together just as much as it is pushing us apart. When we march, when we write, when we argue, we carry the complexities of these relationships.

Having arguments—bitter, loud, emotional arguments—with people you love and still being able to go on loving them is a necessary skill for effective activism. Today, so much organizing takes place online, where reconciliation is horribly difficult, and I’ve seen so many movements crumble over minor ideological disagreements. We need to build personal and societal structures that can withstand these fractures. If we want to make change, we have to do it arm in arm with people we would really rather not be working with.

From Miriam’s book and every year I’ve spent as a member of my family, I’ve learned that it’s the bonds you stretch, bend, and twist that make your structure stable. It’s the fights and feuds that remind us who we are, and why we march, and why we write. I carry this knowledge with me outside of my family, to the communities I lead and the movements I’m a part of. I will always remind myself that in order to change the world, we have to love even the people we hate—be they colleagues, fellow activists, or family.