Contemporary Poetry and Mystical Intimacy 

Award-winning poet Yehoshua November offers his thoughts on the connection between mystical intimacy and poetry.

Blackbirds

Zohar Atkins weighs in on contemporary anti-Semitism “culture wars” through the unique lens of poetry.

Hollow Land

Zohar Atkins shares a few poetic excerpts in honor of Tishah be-Av

Korach

A poem on parshat Korach by Zohar Atkins

Can One Delegate Holocaust Metaphors?

A Talmudic poem about Holocaust appropriation.

Human Words: Rav Elhanan Nir’s “Intentions for Rosh Hashanah”

Levi Morrow provides an all-new translation of Rav Elhanan Nir’s “Kavvanot for Rosh Hashanah,” and analyzes how these theological poems speak about our relationship with God and prayer on Rosh Hashanah.

Epilogue

Tikva Hecht’s moving elegy for her mother, a lyric essay told in verse and art, reflects on the fragility of life and the final confession we recite in the Yom Kippur Amidah.

Wake Up Sleeping One! Yehudah Ha-Levi’s Dramatic Use of Genre and Narrative Voice in...

Yaakov Jaffe examines Yehudah Ha-Levi's High Holiday poem "Yashen, Al Teradam"

Poets Are Purim Jews: On Contemporary Poetry’s Inexplicable Obsession with the Ordinary 

Poet Yehoshua November notices a defining characteristic of contemporary poetry—fixation on the ordinary. In light of Hasidic theology, November argues that appreciation for the holiness of the ordinary underlies Megillat Esther and the celebration of Purim.

Going Viral

A new poem from Zohar Atkins offers a poetic meditation on life in the COVID world.