Since Tamar did a Jewish fiction rundown on Friday, and since I’m a poet, I feel the need to represent my own neglected genre (slight chip on the shoulder over here), even though I know that a very very very small number of you actually buy and read poetry books. But just in case, here’s a short list of good
young Jewish poets whose work you might enjoy…
As I said this morning, Jason Schneiderman is hot shit.
Ariel Greenberg’s first book blew me away, and her newest is more than a little Jew-ish.
Dan Beachy-Quick is (like me) from an intermarried home and does not always identify himself as Jewish, but I’d be remiss if I left him off the list. He’s brilliant and his work reflects the kind of philosophical thought that touches my faith-bone.
Josh Corey is smart as hell, and is blogging today about Jewish poetry (and several of the other poets mentioned here… which will give you a sense for just how small the poetry-world is)
Sabrina Orah Mark writes intense, strange poems. I love them.
And of course, there are a kazillion other people I should include, but I’m supposed to keep these posts short…
I should say that though none of these people confine themselves to Jewish subject matter, they are all Jewish writers. (If I want to learn about the immigrant experience or kosher cooking, I’ll read fiction or nonfiction).
But not poetry… in poetry that kind of “subject feels wrong to me. It feels too heavy, like a caricature. In poetry I look instead for a subtle touch of faith, a vague context of culture. I want to be challenged and inspired by poetry… to learn and think and develop ideas about language and the metaphysical or spiritualor mechanical or logical/legal aspects of the world (which can absolutely be Jewish). I want to find myself approaching belief from odd angles.
I want the inner workings of things. Not descriptions I’ve heard before.
(Full disclosure: some of these people are people I know, but it’s a teeny-tiny world, poetry-land)