Bob Holman is one of New York’s poetry legends. He pioneered the performance poetry scene a few decades ago, opened and is still running his world-renowned Bowery Poetry Club, is a professor, publisher, lecturer and much more. Today, in the spirit of the upcoming holidays, The Arty Semite is featuring Holman’s 1994 poem “A Jew…
Contemporary avant-garde poets have done a great deal to question and redefine the concept of good poetry; new styles, approaches and whole movements emerge constantly. It does not happen often, however, that the notion of a “book of poetry” gets challenged. Ammiel Alcalay’s “‘neither wit nor gold’ (from then),” published this year by Ugly Duckling…
(for 9/11 loved ones) the in(di)visible where you were once the niggun the tefilah of my life that instant transformed you from musical notes and written words to the spaces in between where you can only be heard and read by those who know how to listen and look for you
The recent protest movement in Israel is something of a mystery not only to us, across the ocean, but even to many Israelis. Today The Arty Semite is featuring a glimpse into the heart of this phenomenon through a poem-invitation, composed by a promising young Israeli poet, Anat Levin. One can endlessly argue about the…
Crossposted from Haaretz When Elhanan Nir’s first book of poetry was published, he showed it to his father. His father, learned in the Holy Scriptures, examined the book and asked, “Yes, but how do you know all this? On what are you relying? What are your sources?” “The heart,” Nir answered. “My source is the…
Those who appreciate Vanessa Hidary’s unique, fierce voice in her solo performances as the Hebrew Mamita can now enjoy her words in print, as well. “The Last Kaiser Roll in the Bodega,” Hidary’s first book, is a compelling compilation that paints a word picture of a bold Jewish woman ahead of her time. It is…
When I received my copy of “Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry” (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2011), edited by poet Julie R. Enszer, I was surprised at how small the book was. Measuring only about six by four inches, it seems designed to fit easily into a purse, or perhaps not to…
The niche narrows Hones one thin Until his bones Disclose him So wrote poet and sage Samuel Menashe in one of his numerous works addressing death, Menashe’s first Muse and greatest obsession. As he often mentioned in conversation, he became a poet at the age of 19, having survived the notoriously dangerous World War II…
דאָס ביכל נעמט אַרײַן אַ גלאָסאַר, שמועס־פֿראַגעס און קלאַנג־רעקאָרדירונגען פֿון די דערציילונגען.
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