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Today is the anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which lasted until May 16, 1943. In honor of this resistance, I offer a poem by Nobel Prize Winner Czeslaw Milosz, who was a Polish resistance fighter during the war.
Milosz’s poems are extraordinary. He was an incredible leftist intellectual and artist, and [...]

The movers have come—boxes are packed and on their way. I’m charting my cross-country drive, eager to take in parts of the country I have yet to see. Tonight I said another round of goodbyes, still unable to really utter the words. This time, to my brother and sister (in-law) and my nephew, whom I [...]

Before Shabbas, and before Yom Hashoah, I wanted to share with you an essay written by Adrienne Rich in the Winter 2007 Newsletter of Poets Against War. From their website:
Poets Against War began in late January 2003, when Sam Hamill, longtime pacifist, declined an invitation to a symposium by Laura Bush to celebrate “Poetry and [...]

Wikipedia offers a good beginning list of Jewish American poets–the big hitters like Louise Glück, Adrienne Rich, Marilyn Hacker, Allen Ginsberg, Stanley Kunitz, Gertrude Stein, Philip Levine, Robert Pinsky–all the names you’ll probably see listed a lot as Jewish poets to read, and rightfully you should. Many of their works are quite phenomenal.
But it [...]

As far as Brooklynites go, I’m a complete newbie. Moving to the County of Kings 10 months ago, I’m not even sure I’ve logged enough time as a resident to qualify as freshly-minted. My complete lack of Brooklyn cred, however, was not enough to stop me from picking up Broken Land: Poems of [...]

for poetry month (why april, by the way? ‘the cruelest month’? ‘with his shoures soote’? please.), here’s the text of a talk by irena klepfisz - a fantastic poet in yiddish, english, and both at once, as well as an insightful essayist and deeply committed radical - from a 2006 conference at barnard college called “Jewish Women Changing America: Cross-Generational Conversations”. at the bottom is a poem from one of klepfisz’s books. a complete transcript of the “Changing Culture” panel that klepfisz spoke on (and the rest of the conference) is available online here.

April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. and we’re hoping to celebrate it in style here on JVoices. National Poetry Month began in 1996–a recent phenomena–in order to celebrate, and I’d say, to revive a critical body of literature in the U.S.
So, we will be bringing you a few guest contributors, posting some exquisite [...]