T190.
Jewish Diasporist Poetics
Thursday, March 9, 2023
1:45 pm to 3:00 pm
In the face of rising white supremacist violence, nationalism, and xenophobia, this reading features Jewish poets who are reckoning with US and Israeli state violence. Panelists will read from their work and discuss the role of poetry in challenging Zionism and confronting white supremacy, Islamophobia, and anti-semitism. These poets envision a Judaism that includes many races, genders, sexualities, nationalities, and stands with all oppressed peoples. They ask: How can our poetics imagine a Jewish future rooted in diaspora and solidarity?
Participants
Shelby Handler is a writer, organizer, and educator living in Seattle on Duwamish land. Recent work has appeared in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Pank, Sugar House Review, and The Journal, among others.
Sara Brickman is a queer Jewish writer and performer from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their poems and essays appear in Narrative, Indiana Review, Adroit, and Ghosts of Seattle Past. Their work investigates trauma, mental illness, and alternate realities. They live in Seattle, where they teach writing to youth.
sam sax is a queer, jewish, writer, and educator. Author of Madness (National Poetry Series), Bury It (James Laughlin Award), and Pig (Scribner, 2023). They've received fellowships from Yaddo, Macdowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts. They're currently a lecturer at Stanford University.
Tom Haviv is a Brooklyn-based, Israeli-born writer, multimedia artist, and organizer. His debut book of poetry, A Flag of No Nation, was by Jewish Currents Press in 2019. He is the founder of the Hamsa Flag Project, which intends to stimulate conversation about the future of Israel / Palestine.
Mónica Gomery is the author of Might Kindred, winner of the 2021 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize. A Venezuelan American Ashkenazi poet, her work appears recently in The Iowa Review, Adroit, and Poet Lore. She is a rabbi at Kol Tzedek Synagogue, on unceded Lenni Lenape land in Philadelphia.
