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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 [...]

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 Brooklyn during [...]

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 [...]

“However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole.”–Muriel Rukeyser Twenty-seven years ago today, Muriel Rukeyser passed away, and I couldn’t let this day pass without honoring her memory. I was first introduced [...]

sharon sleeping if he would keep sleeping she could forgive even love the human shell fetal, innocent but the moment he wakes he’s a butchering thieving racist a would-be king sabra shatilla settlements the wall & gaza cut off from the sea why should she bathe him in sentimental soup oh arik the man of [...]