Poetry

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Collection
Emma Lazarus

Lazarus’ Lessons

Sofia Heller

Emma Lazarus was a 19th century Jewish American writer whose poem “The New Colossus,” engraved on Lady Liberty’s platform, embraces immigrants as they enter the United States. Though she was from an upper class family, Lazarus defied societal restrictions and norms and dared others to do the same.

Topics: Immigration, Poetry

Idra Novey

Through her poetry, translation, and fiction, Idra Novey relishes playing in the space between languages.
Rosh Hashanah Marge Piercy

The Birthday of the World

Bella Book

As we say goodbye to 5777 and come together at the start of 5778, Marge Piercy’s poem “The Birthday of the World” has been resonating through the halls of JWA. Like Piercy, we’re asking ourselves: How have we worked to make change this past year? What have we dared? What will we do in the coming year to further justice, to speak out and take a stand?

Penelope and the Suitors

Penelope’s Feminist Odyssey

Isabel Kirsch

Throughout The Odyssey, Penelope, Odysseus' wife, is characterized as constant, virtuous, and patient. She’s seen as the epitome of faithful wifeliness for her refusal to marry a suitor and for her belief that Odysseus will return. Her character is two-dimensional and, for the most part, irrelevant to Odysseus' escapades. 

Topics: Feminism, Fiction, Poetry
Clara Lemlich in a Shirtwaist, circa 1910

Writing a Revolutionary

Melanie Crowder

Authors are often asked about the inspiration behind their books. Usually, that question is a tricky one to answer. But in the case of my historical novel for young adults, Audacity, it’s easy. The life of labor activist Clara Lemlich was all the inspiration I needed.

Topics: Labor Rights, Poetry
"Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers"

Women Of Influence: What Macbeth Taught Us About Women In Power

Tess Kelly

That Scottish Shakespearian tragedy, so shrouded in mystery that it is unlucky even to say its name, gave society new ideas about women that have stayed with us since 1606, when the play debuted in London.  

Topics: Plays, Poetry

Amy Gottlieb

In her novel The Beautiful Possible, Amy Gottlieb melds the everyday and the mystic by showing the secret lives and troubled pasts of rabbis, scholars, and their loved ones.

Alicia Jo Rabins

With her indie rock song cycle Girls in Trouble, musician Alicia Jo Rabins has reinterpreted the women of the Bible for a modern audience.

Jane Yolen / Rachel Swirsky

Fantasy Authors

Seeking Justice Through Fantasy

Timbrel

Leading with Timbrels: Another Side to the Passover Story

Molly Pifko

Every year, my temple holds a women’s seder on the second night of Passover. This ritual has always been important to me because throughout my Jewish education, I have clung to stories as the basis for my learning. 

Grace Aguilar

The Dangerous Gift

Tess Kelly

What got my attention wasn’t the writing, though it does connect us. I wasn’t drawn in by the poetry or the Judaism or any of the other traits I share with this woman. No, what caught my eye was the measles. Grace Aguilar: British/Jewish novelist, poet extraordinaire, religious writer, social historian, and liturgist; and I wanted to write about her because of the measles. 

Topics: Fiction, Poetry

Henny Wenkart

Through her creation of the Jewish Women’s Poetry Workshop, Henny Wenkart created much-needed community and resources for Jewish women writers.

Episode 9: Sonnet for America

In search of some post-election, pre-Thanksgiving meaning, host Nahanni Rous and JWA Executive Director Judith Rosenbaum explore that great American symbol, the Statue of Liberty—and the Jewish woman who gave her a voice. Emma Lazarus was a poet and writer who is remembered for the sonnet that redefined the Statue as the Mother of Exiles. But she was also an activist who worked with the poor immigrants of the 1880s and challenged her upper class Jewish community to take responsibility for these Russian Jewish refugees.

Joy Ladin and Lesléa Newman

Identity Poetics: An Afternoon with Joy Ladin and Lesléa Newman

Bella Book
Tara Metal

On a sunny but cold Sunday in Boston, poets Joy Ladin and Lesléa Newman spoke at a JWA-sponsored event about their newly released collections of poetry, Ladin’s Impersonation and Newman’s I Carry My Mother

Hannah Szenes, 1944, cropped

Living A Life Of Valor

Sarah Groustra

I don’t think I’m a very brave person. I’m normally quite timid, and taking a stand is something that does not come naturally to me. I sometimes hesitate to say what I really think for fear of how others will react, and I often find it easy to fade into the background in large groups.

Marcia Falk

May You Be Blessed In All That You Are

Eliana Gayle-Schneider

Each Shabbat my parents bless me with the words, “Be who you are and may you be blessed in all that you are.” These words have been embedded in my mind as my family’s traditional blessing, signifying the start of Shabbat.  While other families bless their children saying, “May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah,” this alternative prayer has been our way of welcoming the Sabbath for as long as I can remember. 

West Coast Highway

I Came to Explore the Wreck

Rachel Landau

Boxes of slide reels still cover my repurposed kitchen table. To help with storage, a nearby closet offers enough space for a whopping twelve boxes for a total of sixteen, all compiled by my paternal Grandfather. I’m no mathematician but I can easily calculate that, with sixteen boxes of eighty slides, there must be over twelve hundred squares of film.

Maxine Kumin, 1925 - 2014

Among those of us who have been traveling in her wake for decades, she was and is a model of how to live, as well as how to write, courageously and sanely, with artistic craft and generosity, out of a profound love of our shared life.

Adrienne Rich / Erika Meitner

Feminist Poets

Writing Truth To Power

Erika Meitner

Erika Meitner’s poetry plays with the idea of overlooked but vital spaces, from malls and suburban developments to women’s bodies.
"I Carry My Mother" by Leslea Newman

Book Review: I Carry My Mother

Miriam Cantor-Stone

I Carry My Mother is not only a tribute to the works of famous poets but, more importantly, to Newman’s mother, who passed away three years ago. The poems show her mother both as Newman wants her to be remembered as well as how Newman saw her as she was dying in her hospital bed.

Topics: Poetry

Alice B. Toklas Moves In Permanently with Gertrude Stein

September 9, 1910
Alice Babette Toklas heard distinct chiming when she met Gertrude Stein.
Adrienne Rich

Poetry is Politics

Rachel Landau

One of the best ways to write poetry is to read poetry: this is common knowledge probably spoken at every writing class in the world. However, this advice is not specific enough. The leader of the class should instead announce to the group of rookie writers that one of the best ways to write poetry is to read the poetry of Adrienne Rich.

Topics: Activism, Poetry

Long-lost Poem by War Heroine Hannah Szenes is Found

September 2, 2012

A poem by WWII hero Hannah Szenes was discovered 68 years after her death.

Emma Lazarus

Mining the Archive: Emma and Immigration

Yana Kozukhin

Long before Emma Lazarus’ words were immortalized on that great copper statue, she was a young Jewish American girl growing up in New York. Throughout her life she produced numerous poems, essays, letters, translations, and even a novel.  

Topics: Activism, Poetry

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