From “The Necessity to Speak,” by Sam Hamill Apr 6, 2022 poetry & 2020 “The true poet gives up the self. The I of my poem is not me. It is the first person impersonal, it is permission for you to enter the experience Reading Mark Nowak’s “Social Poetics:” Thinking About the First Tuesdays Cento and A ‘Flipped Script’ Poetry Reading Apr 6, 2022 poetry & 2020 I’m just a single chapter into Mark Nowak’s Social Poetics—the chapter is called “A People’s History of the Poetry Workshop: Watts, New York City, My Year Long Writing Project Apr 6, 2022 poetry & 2020 So. Thinking it would help prod me to start blogging regularly again—and, specifically, to start blogging about all things poetry and writing—I The Music I’d Like to Put Back Into My Life Dec 26, 2020 my work & 2020 Those are my hands over the keys at the grand piano that stood in the parlor of the dorm I lived in when I attended Edinburgh University in the The Way Academia Is Supposed to Work Dec 22, 2020 my work & education & union issues & 2020 I can’t believe I’m writing this at 3:30 AM. I woke up about a half hour ago from a very disturbing dream, in which the character with whom I Publication News: Three New Poems in Two Lovely Publications Nov 26, 2020 my work & 2020 You’d think that being shut in during the pandemic would have left me enough time to keep this website up-to-date, right? Hah! I should, for Medical Culture and Its Effects on Doctors and Patients Oct 29, 2020 events & 2020 On the evening of October 22, I had the pleasure of moderating a reading and discussion with two fine writers, Dr. Zinaria Williams and Elizabeth Antisemitism Has Always Been a Part of My Life - 1 Oct 26, 2020 jewish & 2020 (I wrote the original version of this post at least four years ago, but events of the last couple of years, along with what I wrote in my last post My Response to the Erasure of Antisemitism in Namrata Poddar’s Article in the Recent Issue of Poets & Writers Oct 12, 2020 poetry & race & jewish & 2020 In an article called ”Return to the MFA: A Call for Systemic Change in the Literary Arts”, which Poets & Writers published in its September/October Lines That Didn’t Make the Cut: Sometimes It’s Just a Big Mess Aug 5, 2020 poetry & my work & 2020 I don’t remember where the first two lines of this came from, but somehow it ended up being a very long poem spoken mostly by a woman deciding to From “The Lines That Antisemitism and Racism Draw” Aug 1, 2020 jewish & 2020 Today is Shabbat Nachamu, the Sabbath of Consolation. Last year at this time, I was on a family vacation in Europe, sitting in our host’s dining Reading “The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam,” by Fatima Mernissi Jul 27, 2020 islam & religion & quotes & 2020 I read Mernissi’s book some years ago, and it was an instructive journey into my own ignorance about Islam, particularly about an aspect of that Commonplace Question #2: Are the Poems Part of a Conversation? Jul 24, 2020 my work & poetry & commonplace questions & 2020 This question, from Commonplace episode #2, Rachel’s interview with Nick Flynn, brought me back to a conversation I had with a friend named Ellie From “Pluralism and Its Discontents: The Case of Blacks and Jews,” by Cheryl Greenberg Jul 20, 2020 jewish & race & quotes & 2020 Twenty five years or so ago, not too long after I first started teaching at the college where I am still a professor, one of my colleagues—the woman From Male Lust Jul 13, 2020 quotes & 2020 Because a privileged man’s life is “unremarkable,” he is less likely to know how his social position affects his life. A “white” man knows he is From Male Lust Jul 6, 2020 quotes & 2020 “Think of a judicial system that not only favors heterosexuality but reserves its favor for specific types of heterosexuality: not S/M—that could Lines That Didn’t Make the Cut: Ruth’s Story Jul 1, 2020 my work & poetry & 2020 It wasn’t like I showed him anything he hadn’t seen before. Besides, he took the ones with clothes, the good ones, only if I did a few from Commonplace Question #1: How Did You Become a Poet? Jun 28, 2020 my work & poetry & commonplace questions & 2020 I’ve been listening to Rachel Zucker’s Commonplace podcast for about two and a half years now. If you don’t know it, it’s definitely worth checking The Ethics of Bearing Witness in Poetry to Violence and Trauma Jun 13, 2020 my work & poetry & 2020 The issues raised when one chooses to make literary art out of trauma are complex. Over at the Ploughshares blog, for example, Tracy Strauss has a If You Read Rumi in English, Read This New Yorker Article Jun 5, 2020 iran & translation & poetry & islam & sufism & 2020 Written by Rozina Ali, the article is called “The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi,” and it says something that Iranians I know have been Lines That Didn’t Make the Cut: Remembering Claudia Jun 3, 2020 poetry & my work & 2020 The revision process leaves every writer with bits and pieces of work that no longer belong to the poem or story or whatever where they first From God’s Phallus, by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz Jun 1, 2020 quotes & feminism & jewish & 2020 If the deity is the father writ large, then this divine masculinity is by no means simply a confirmation of human masculinity. It is at the same “Stand by Me” in Persian and English May 31, 2020 iran & 2020 I was going through my old posts and I found this video from back in 2009, when demonstrations in response to Iran’s contested elections had the Craft Talk 2: Packing Lines With Sound & Meaning - Rosa Alice Branco, Translated by Alexis Levitin May 29, 2020 poetry & craft talk & 2020 It’s hard to write about craft when you’re talking about a translation, especially if you can’t read the original, because it’s not always possible I Just Learned About the Equal Justice Initiative - If You Don’t Know About It, You Should May 20, 2020 jewish & race & 2020 In “The Lines That Antisemitism and Racism Draw,” a series of letters I composed during the summer of 2016 that were published in December of that