THE VAST UNKNOWING collects a wide spectrum of poetry from Nancy Shiffrin...One of her main questions is Who are we? What made us that person? She explores a number of sources of our identity, including...family relationships, religion, and the stories we are told when we are young...(in the poem) "My Shoah" (Shiffrin) brings together many of her disparate threads-family, religion, ...evil..and details from her personal history-and makes them work together. When she is at her best, as in this poem, Shiffrin produces deep powerful poetry. Luckily, she is at her best more often than not in this deep, expansive book. G. Murray Thomas, poetix.net