JACK: Jewish Advocacy for Culture & Knowledge

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57091/mysticism-for-beginners?%5CL18X_0Z822XWvZJ6ydfA=

Mysticism for Beginners the day before?— like nuns in fields of rice, and the dusk, slow and systematic, erasing the outlines of medieval houses, and olive trees on little hills,…

This should be excellent:

Poetry and Urgency with Eve Grubin (Zoom) | HVWC This 4-week session centers on writing poems that feel necessary—poems driven by urgency, pressure, and a need to speak.

I want to thank the very talented and very wise poet Joshua Gottlieb-Miller for visiting my Multicultural American Literature class today and giving us a reading. I recommend his new book, which can be found below.

Dybbuk Americana – Wesleyan University Press Inventive poetry explores Jewish identity in America"How can I teach a prayer / I only know how to recite?" "America, whose death / didn't you come from?" Th...

https://voxpopulisphere.com/2022/10/02/baruch-november-the-fountain-of-light-and-forgiveness/

Baruch November: The Fountain of Light and Forgiveness Must we mourn ourselves before our passing?

https://voxpopulisphere.com/2022/10/02/baruch-november-the-fountain-of-light-and-forgiveness/

I want to give a shoutout to the wonderfully imaginative poet Sam Taylor for visiting my Introduction to Poetry class at NYSCAS, A Division of Touro College and reading his work. It was great. I recommend getting his book at the Amazon link below:

N**e Descending an Empire (Pitt Poetry Series) As a collection of politically engaged poetry for the 21st century, N**e Descending and Empire develops the lyrical voice of a citizen-poet speaking to the urgency of our contemporary moment, especially its ecological crisis. This is a book that brings all the supposed sensitivity of poetry into ...

I am excited to share with you another poem that will be featured in my upcoming book. This one is called "Self-Portrait with the Baal Shem Tov. I thank Michael Simms for publishing, too, in Vox Populi.

Let me fall if I must fall.
The one I will become
will catch me,
said the Baal Shem Tov.

You keep falling, but learn
nothing new. You land
in cold currents of regret,
sending shocks to your soul,
but it doesn’t awaken.

***

The Baal Shem Tov died on a sacred
holiday. His followers forbidden
to bury him, he buried himself:

Another selfless act
in a life of piety, while
you push yourself just
to pray in the morning—

Not stare at snow tumbling
down dark grey
Washington Heights sky—

And ask G-d to match you
with a woman whose lamp
does not go out at night.

***

If you lived in the time
of the Baal Shem Tov— wielder
of G-d’s hidden names—
you’d take a one-horse wagon
over Carpathian Foothills,
Ukraine’s hard, snowy roads,
hoping he’d bless you
with a family and the secrets
of the holy curves on Hebrew
letters to teach your children.

To read the rest, go to the link below:

https://voxpopulisphere.com/2024/08/25/baruch-november-self-portrait-with-the-baal-shem-tov/

I am excited to invite everyone to this reading at the Beis featuring Maya Bernstein, Yehoshua Josh November, and me. It will be hosted by their new resident poet Rabbi Neil Fleischmann! Don't miss it!

Hey everyone!
It is time to pre-order Yehoshua Josh November's new book at the link below. It is sure to be great because my brother writes wonderful poetry.

https://www.orisonbooks.com/product-page/the-concealment-of-endless-light-poems-by-yehoshua-november?fbclid=IwY2xjawEiXHpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQHlEBKpgjr87SEdNuJ-zxpwVuu0BUyWaPJhlsnucpYKET2CUJsQcBiYsw_aem_wR1YWn67i4CM5tz0nNawlA

, David Ross

The Concealment of Endless Light, poems by Yehoshua November | Orison Books The Concealment of Endless Lightpoems by Yehoshua November *Available for pre-order* Orison Bookspaper / 88 pp. / $18.00ISBN: 978-1-949039-50-4Distributed to the trade by Itasca Books952-223-8373 / [email protected] Date: September 3, 2024 ABOUT THE BOOK The third poetry collection f...

Dear everyone,
I invite you to read my poem that was recently published in the Green Hills Literary Lantern:

Slow Motion Rush

DiMaggio swore his "eyes popped
out" the first time
he saw Hank Greenberg
swing a bat.

Who can know what it was like
for Greenberg in 1938, kept
from glory near season's end?

Once I dated
a French Moroccan
who avoided all forms
of touch, never
explaining why.

Some say since Greenberg was a Jew
they wouldn't pitch to him,
didn't want
a Hebrew breaking
Babe Ruth's famous record.

She let me kiss her
months in, and once I did
she abruptly said,
"We're done. I can't feel
any stronger than this."

I never saw inside her
small room. I imagine
entering it
was like that
slow motion rush

around first, crowd
on its feet,
not feeling my own feet
touch the ground
and forgetting
to breathe.

,

Hello everyone!
Looking for a great book to read this summer? Look no further. My book "Bar Mitzvah Dreams" is available on Amazon. Just click below. Thank you, M Scott Douglass for my new inventory.

Bar Mitzvah Dreams Bar Mitzvah Dreams is a fine first book, one of the best I’ve recently read. The poems are powerfully made with strong beginnings and surprising conclusions. There is no chaff. The language is direct and rich in metaphor. The free verse is rhythmic and strongly stressed. All are serious, but ofte....