Nettie Farris
Like the Psalms of David,
not a collection to be read beginning to end in one sitting. Instead, these poems are best savored, one at a time, perhaps randomly. The organization of the collection defies simplistic classification and division. These poems are arranged in alphabetical order according to authors’ last names. I came to this collection of poems published by the Ashland Poetry Press with one question:
What does it mean to be Jewish? I abandon the collection with a more general question:
What does it mean to be human?
You might begin, as I did, with Jane Yolen’s poem, “Shoes: Holocaust Museum, Washington D.C.” I am not Jewish myself, and I wanted to start with something familiar. Jane Yolen, I knew I could trust. Long ago, I read many of her picture books to my children, and I admire her work on fairy tales. Her poem, here, is also familiar. It’s a meditation on the difference in knowledge residing in our heads and knowledge residing in our h
As a poet, creative writing instructor, and Chassidic Jew, I am fascinated by the surprising ways contemporary poetry and Judaism overlap. It was, therefore, a great honor and challenge to write the following essay, which serves as the “Foreword” to 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium (Ashland Poetry Press, 2021), an anthology of poems on the Jewish experience by a diverse group of today’s established and emerging poets.