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!
"Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief"
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
