In her use of the poetic form, Holocaust poet, Irena Klepfisz, confronts guilt, fear, loss and anger. While her poems are filled with mourning, trauma, ambivalence and the recollection of extremity, they are also filled with hope. This essay concerns Klepfisz's early poems, primarily “PoW's”, “Death camp”, “Searching for my father's body” and “The house”, which appeared in her 1975 work, Periods of stress and demonstrates that Klepfisz's poetry reflects her ability and her tendency to confront grief and loss by way of the poetic form.