Author, essayist, poet, and literary scholar Joy Ladin will be joined by poet and Yetzirah founder Jessica Jacobs for a conversation about Jewish poetry. Sharing poems from their recent and past works, including Ladin’s forthcoming book Family and Jacob’s recent unalone, Ladin and Jacobs will discuss how Jewish tradition can inspire new poetic approaches, and how, in turn, Jewish poetry can illuminate and expand Jewish tradition.
Joy Ladin has long worked at the intersection of Jewish tradition and poetry, and has published ten books of poetry, including Shekhinah Speaks; National Jewish Book Award winner The Book of Anna; Lambda Literary Award finalists Transmigration and Impersonation, the latter of which was recently reissued in a free revised edition from Double Back Books. A new collection, Family, is forthcoming from Persea in September 2024, and is available for preorder now at www.perseabooks.com/family. Her work has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship, among other honors. Her writing is available at www.joyladin.com.
Jessica Jacobs is the author of unalone, poems in conversation with Genesis (Four Way Books, March 2024); Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going (Four Way Books, 2019), one of Library Journal’s Best Poetry Books of the Year and winner of the Devil’s Kitchen and Goldie Awards; and Pelvis with Distance (White Pine Press, 2015), winner of the New Mexico Book Award and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; and is the co-author of Write It! 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire (Spruce Books/Penguin RandomHouse, 2020). Jessica is the founder and executive director of Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry.