Jewish Poets in the Woods

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
This is our second feature of poetry written at KlezKanada Poetry Retreat. See the original feature here.
Ezra Pound once stated that poets are the antennas of the race. At this year’s KlezKanada Poetry Retreat, which I was privileged to co-coordinate with Jake Marmer, poets composed alongside the timbres and textures of Yiddish music. Traveling through the weightiness of language and history, the conflagration of sonoric ecstasies and shadows of meaning, they engaged in playful language experiments, defamiliarizing and connecting with the environment, ritual and radicalism, tradition and translation, all dialectically electric and resonant with the rush of klezmer in the mountains of language.
Here are some of the sparked shards and fragments of light, glinting memories morphed through language and sound created that week. KlezKanada Poetry Retreat 2014 will be held August 18-24. We are accepting applications for next summer now!
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
