Finishing Line Press (forthcoming, November 2026)
The Last Flame Last is a suite of 18 poems that explore the events of October 7th and the surge of antisemitism that followed, and how these events affected and continue to affect the author, a second-generation Jewish poet living in the diaspora of the United States. From seeing a statue of Moses in a public park being vandalized, to hearing a white supremacist ranting on TV, to experiencing an unexpected and heartening encounter in a Middle Eastern café, the poet calls the reader in, offering a chance to question, to grieve, to mourn, and finally to hope alongside her.
Advance Praise
“In The Last Flame Last, Lesléa Newman writes from the spit and bone and beauty of Jewish identity. With a voice that is at once intimate, tender and furious, Newman moves between elegy and defiance—mourning the children lost on October 7th with a textured simplicity, then pivoting to the quiet terror of two Jewish women lowering their voices in a New England café, asking each other whether it’s time to leave. The scary scene that mirrors the scary time. These poems are grounded in grit and upheaval, lovingkindness and sorrow, and this is what makes them so moving. There is a durable duality to the work that breaks the heart wide open. Her poems sit with the heat of contemporary antisemitism, but they also find dark comedy in the glowing ash absurdity of survival. Isn’t that the point: perseverance in the face of hostility? These poems speak to this burning question. They are narrative and generous and alive with flame, fire, and the aftermath of the ember. The Last Flame Last is a book of poems in which the fire burns long after the flame has gone out and why you have to hold it—one hand burning, the other cool—and feel the force of her incendiary poems take over your body and sear you alive.”
“Leslea’s words will sear your heart with creation’s pain and leave you clutching your chest as you self soothe, managing all kinds of rumbling feelings, including wonder and gratitude. She manipulates words like a crafter, her poems, a masterpiece of brutal honesty and vulnerability. She writes from the perspective of the last Jew, invokes a word of Arabic and builds a bridge, reminds us that a yid is always a yid, and changes the way we will look at pineapples—forever. ‘Needless to say,’ we are so grateful to Leslea for all her writing gifts!”
“The poems of The Last Flame Last confront the harsh history of antisemitism past and present. Harsh as that confrontation may be, it is spun in a gorgeous lyric of joy and discovery. An everyday look at a pineapple—is it fruit or is it a grenade? The customs the poet invokes call across time. These poem are not afraid to imagine the last Jew, and still they celebrate the way tradition and history continues to enrich our lives.”