Poetry

Content type
Collection
Marge Piercy

How do I love Marge Piercy?

Lesléa Newman

How do I love Marge Piercy? Let me count the ways:

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Yiddish poetry: It's not just for men!

Talia bat Pessi
Most people believe that Yiddish literature and poetry was written solely by men. In reality, there were hundreds of female Yiddish writers and poets, all of whom had their own distinct biographies and writing styles. Edith Kaplan Bregman was one of these women. She was born in a Russian shtetl in 1899 to a Hasidic family, immigrating to New York when she was 13. In America, she was exposed to literature that hadn’t been available in Europe, so she became a voracious reader. Bregman went on to write poetry in her native tongue, Yiddish. Her love of language led her to meet many Yiddish literary giants, like Avrom Reyzen, a poet who became her mentor. While she wrote poems throughout her early life, her works weren’t published until 1939, when a Yiddish newspaper had a poetry contest that she entered and won. Her victory gave her the confidence to publish more of her written work. Some of the themes that recur throughout her poems are a love of Judaism and God, life in Europe, and Holocaust remembrance. In addition to writing poetry, Bregman sang and played the mandolin and piano. Bregman’s last poem was published in 1997, a few years before her death at age 99.
Topics: Poetry
Lesléa Newman

How To Make Matzo Brei

Lesléa Newman

It has to be Sunday morning,
not just any Sunday morning
the Sunday morning of Passover

Topics: Food, Passover, Poetry
Marge Piercy

Matzoh

Marge Piercy

Matzoh

Topics: Food, Passover, Poetry
Voices of Jewish Poets Logo

Liberation in poetry: Who Knows One

Debra Cash

It should be easy to speak praise at a time of liberation. It is not.

Topics: Passover, Poetry
Voices of Jewish Poets Logo

Passover Poetry: Giving Miriam her song

Gail Reimer

In recent years, Miriam has become regular presence at the Passover table.  For some she is there in the form of Miriam’s cup, a ritual addition to the Passover Seder created by Jewish feminists. For others, she is invoked through Debbie Friedman’s joyous song, an occasion, at many seders, for women to sing and dance, continuing or reexperiencing the celebration of freedom, led by Miriam, upon crossing the Red Sea.   

Topics: Passover, Bible, Poetry
Jojo Lazar, 2011

The Burlesque Poetess reads "One taught the word diaspora before diaphanous"

Leah Berkenwald

Jojo Lazar is a Boston-based multimedia visual and performance artist known as The Burlesque Poetess.

Topics: Passover, Poetry
Merle Feld, 2010

Passover Poetry: Studying the Mundane and Holy Terrain

Merle Feld

Living as a poet means you are acutely attuned to the voices within, you seek to listen, to discern the words that best capture your own inner truth.

Topics: Passover, Poetry
Voices of Jewish Poets Logo

Passover poetry: Re-telling the story of our own lives

Gail Reimer

National Poetry Month officially began yesterday. It is not altogether clear why the Academy of American Poets chose April as the month to celebrate poets and poetry.

Adrienne Rich

A poem for Adrienne

Marge Piercy

Another Obituary

 

Topics: Poetry
Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich: navigating hope

Judith Rosenbaum

The news of Adrienne Rich’s death yesterday at age 82 sent me immediately to my bookshelves and an extended swim through the currents of words she has left behind. All writers believe in the power of words—and maybe especially poets, whose words are fewer and so carefully chosen—but for me Rich’s writing particularly and persuasively argued for the ability of words, language, expression to create new realities, to change the world.

"I am Jewish" spoken word speaks volumes

Kate Bigam

Andrew Lustig is not a Jewess – but his words are applicable to all of us, male and female, young and old, who identify as Jewish.

Top 10 Moments for Jewish Women in 2011

Jewesses With Attitude
10. We celebrated the 40th anniversary of Our Bodies, Ourselves

Birth of writer Dorothy Parker

August 22, 1893

The always witty, sometimes vicious writer Dorothy Parker was born on this day in 1893 to a Jewish father and Scottish mother.

Death of Gertrude Stein

July 27, 1946

The American modernist writer Gertrude Stein died on July 27, 1946, at the American Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.

Esther M. Broner, 1927 - 2011

I know how many thousands of lives Esther has touched and how many Jewish women walk taller for having followed in her groundbreaking footsteps.

We remember Esther M. Broner

Leah Berkenwald

We were saddened to wake up to the news that Esther M. Broner passed away yesterday. A beloved novelist, playwright, ritualist, and feminist writer, Esther M. Broner was born on July 8, 1927, in Detroit, Michigan. Her writing, including Her Mothers (1975), A Weave of Women (1978) and many others, made her one of the most important teachers of Jewish feminism and feminist Judaism.

Beverly Pepper and Carol Gilligan

Women who frame our world

Elizabeth Stone

Who are the women who frame our world? A small gathering of about 100 women met in San Francisco last week to hear from an array of leaders in the creative arts.

Top 10 Jewish Women in Labor History

10 Things You Should Know About Emma Lazarus

Leah Berkenwald

Emma Lazarus was born in 1849 to Moses and Esther Nathan Lazarus, descendants of the pioneering group of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who settled in New Amsterdam in the mid 1600s.

Ruth F. Brin, 1921 - 2009

Ruth Brin was an essential part of the fabric of Minnesota's Jewish community, teaching classes on immigrant literature, American Jewish writers and Judaism at the University of Minnesota and Macalester, shaping the Jewish arts scene with contributions of time, energy and critical funding, writing book reviews . . . up until her death, and raising distinguished and engaged children. . .

Miriam Goodman, 1938 - 2008

Miriam was a quirky amalgam of old world and new. She resisted cell phones and was certainly no fashion queen, but no new composer was too ‘out there’ for Miriam; no movie too unconventional. Of course, she loved the classics too, but she liked her art to be challenging, to break new ground. In her own life and art, Miriam never stopped breaking new ground.

Shulamis Yelin, 1913 - 2002

Shulamis's commanding voice filled up the cluttered apartment and I could see how much she loved an audience. It hardly mattered if I was one woman in her kitchen, or a group of children on a frozen plain, or a gathering of old Yiddishists downtown. She was holding court, spinning tales, imparting wisdom.

Adele Margolis, 1909 - 2009

She continued to dream of, and work for, a world at peace. Before the 2004 election, horrified at America's attack on Iraq, she wrote a long, impassioned letter about the importance of the election, photocopied it, and mailed it to friends who were doubtful their vote would matter.

Grace Paley, 1922 - 2007

But even more, even more than I admired the stories, which was a lot, I admired Grace Paley's activism and her moral courage.

Adding Irena Klepfisz to the Canon

Leora Jackson

In women’s studies classes, we spend a lot of time talking about power: who has it, who doesn’t, and how it moves. Power matters in literature, too, since those in power are the ones who shape the canons – the defined sets of literary works that represent a particular field. 

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