Poem | Afikomen
I’ve written the soup, the parting of the sea, the savage plagues and the candles
Poem | [From “The Naomi Letters”] January 23, 2017
There is another version of the story in which we survive nothing by accident.
Beshert | Bonded by the Bard
“Was that your friend Bill Shakespeare?” my youngest son, Alex, then six, asks after my husband, Steve, hangs up the phone.
If that seems like a crazy question from a child, it was par for the course in my household, because it was words that wooed me, words that won me, and words that keep us – the entire family – in thrall.
From the very beginning, in fact.
Poem | A Little Girl’s 1930s Dirge
“Turn off your lights! / Turn them off! / Heh heh heh,” the radio coughs. / The Olga Coal Company presents
Poem | A Jew in 2019
No matter how many generations / our forebears lived in a country / we are always seen by many / as those who can’t belong
At Home With Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy doesn’t live that far off the beaten track—it’s only Cape Cod, after all—but it feels remote, especially in the off-season. The poet, novelist and longtime feminist activist, who’s now 83, has lived in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, since the 1970s.
Judith Viorst Talks Nearing 90
At 88 years old, Viorst doesn’t fail to remind us how fiercely funny she is in her appropriately titled poetry collection: Nearing 90 and Other Comedies of Late Life.
Poem: Ninth of Av
The day you left was the Ninth of Av, / a day of grief, the Temple destroyed.
Book Review // Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali
Until the 1980s, women were a small minority among Hebrew writers. There was Russian-born Rahel Bluwstein (1890–1931), considered the “founding mother” of modern Hebrew poetry by women. Esther Raab (1894–1981) was the first native-born Israeli woman poet, principally known for her rich use of modern Hebrew.
A Psalmist Named Peres
In effect, perhaps without him even realizing it, Shimon Peres both spoke and wrote in parallelism.
A Tribute to Moshe Dor (1932-2016)
Moshe Dor (1932-2016) was a major figure in contemporary Israeli literature. A lyric poet par excellence, his subject was love.
Poetry That is Better Than Poetry
There have been Jewish American poets for about as long as there has been American poetry.