Two Jewish poetry readings (thanks again to Ruth Kaufman)

Pamela Greenberg

thecompletepsalms.com

New York City has a lively poetry scene with four to six readings almost every day. Two of the city's many poetry readings this week will have a Jewish focus. 

“Baruch She’amar” Festival of the Spoken Word!

Samuel Menashe and Stanley Moss will read their poetry, and afterwards hold court in a panel discussion about their personal Jewish poetics. Curated by Jake Marmer.

Samuel Menashe is the first recipient of the Neglected Masters Prize established by The Poetry Foundation. Born in New York City in 1925, Menashe has practiced his art of “compression and crystallization” (in Derek Mahon’s phrase) in poems that are brief in form but startlingly wide-ranging and profound in their engagement with ultimate questions. Dana Gioia has written: “Menashe is essentially a religious poet, though one without an orthodox creed. Nearly every poem he has ever published radiates a heightened religious awareness.” Intensely musical and rigorously constructed, Menashe’s poetry stands apart in its solitary meditative power. But it is equally a poetry of the everyday, suffused, in the words of Christopher Ricks, with “the courage of comedy, flanked by the respect of innocence.” The humblest of objects, the minutest of natural forms here become powerfully suggestive, and even the shortest of the poems are spacious in the perspectives they open. Here's a video of Menashe:

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Stanley Moss is a widely acclaimed poet and translator, as well the publisher of the Sheepmeadow Press. John Ashberry called Moss the “American poetry’s best-kept secret, better known as the innovative publisher of other poets than for his own highly charged, stingingly beautiful lyrics.” 

Monday, April 26 | 8:15 PM | The Sixth Street Synagogue, 325 East Sixth Street (btwn 1^st & 2^nd Aves in Manhattan).

The Complete Psalms in a New Translation: Book Reading and Discussion with Author Pam Greenberg 
Pamela Greenberg is a poet and translator, and author of The Complete Psalms: The Book of Prayer Songs in a New Translation. Greenberg has received awards in both writing and Jewish Studies, including a Shoolman Fellowship from Hebrew College, where she also received an award in Hebrew Literature. In her new translation, Greenberg approaches the psalms as a poetic and prayerful act, rekindling their relevance to our lives. Praised by Arthur Green as “an act of courage” and with a foreword by Susannah Heschel, this translation will awaken you to new ways of using the psalms in your spiritual life.

Thursday, April 29 | 7:00 PM | B'nai Jeshurun, 88th Street Sanctuary  (between Broadway and West End Avenue in Manhattan).

For other NY Jewish Culture events see my recent articles and the links in the right margin of this page under New York Jewish Culture Events Listings.


For more info: David Cooper