Grammar of Passage records a German family's quiet lives as they are pulled into the gathering maelstrom of the first half of the Twentieth Century. But looking back is like a granddaughter staring at a photo of her grandmother; [a] woman she never knew/ whose features and gestures we both share// and whom I, too, never knew. Omissions in the stories passed down hint at a hidden complicity with the regime, and the lingering legacy of violence in the aftermath of war, as when the fabric from a Nazi flag is repurposed for a child's dress. Monika's attention to detail in this début, tempered with deep empathy brings individual moments to vivid life, deftly demonstrating how poetry can excavate and reinvigorate history.