Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress: A Poetic “Duet”

by Erika Dreifus on
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On Friday, May 2, The Forward‘s Arty Semite blog published my poem “Mount Zion.” And on Friday, May 9, my poem “September 1, 1946” appeared on the same.

Initially, I thought that I might share both poems with you. A pair.

But then, something better came along. And I mean that quite literally.

Last Friday, I shared the link to “September 1, 1946”–which uses W.H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939” to jump-start a poem about my father’s maternal grandmother–with some family and friends.

My great-grandmother, who is the woman at the center of "September 1, 1946," along with her grown-up "baby grandson" and HIS first baby--me.
My great-grandmother, who is the woman at the center of “September 1, 1946,” along with her grown-up “baby grandson” and HIS first baby–me.

Within hours, one member of that community–Jon Racherbaumer–posted a poem in response. It represents an effort, in Jon’s words, to express “how I imagine you imagining as you wrote.”

After reading both my poem and Jon’s, my friend and poetry teacher Sage Cohen commented, “What a duet!” And that’s how I hope you may also see them.

Here, again, is “September 1, 1946.” I hope that you’ll read it, and then return here for “Erika’s Vision,” re-posted here with Jon’s permission. (more…)

From My Bookshelf: “Helpful to Israel and the Jewish People”–An Interview with Nora Gold

by Erika Dreifus on
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FieldsofExileDr. Nora Gold’s Fields of Exile has been described as the first novel about anti-Israelism on campus, and it has received enthusiastic advance praise from Phyllis Chesler, Thane Rosenbaum, Steve Stern, and others. Gold is also the author of the acclaimed Marrow and Other Stories, which won a Canadian Jewish Book Award, as well as praise from Alice Munro, who – after reading the title story – wrote Gold: “Bravo!”

I’ve been a fan of the Toronto-based Gold and her work since reading that collection. And I’ve also had work published in Jewish Fiction.net, an online journal that Gold founded and edits. When I discovered that Fields of Exile was slated for a May 2014 release, I knew that I’d be eager to read it (and I said so in a piece for The Forward‘s Arty Semite blog at the beginning of the year). As I noted then, the new novel seems all-too-timely to anyone following news accounts about the vilification of Israel in academia. According to the novel’s publisher, Dundurn, this novel is “about love, betrayal, and the courage to stand up for what one believes as well as a searing indictment of the hypocrisy and intellectual sloth that threatens the integrity of our society.”

Gold is also a blogger for “The Jewish Thinker” at Haaretz, and the Writer-in-Residence and an Associate Scholar at the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Gold holds both Canadian and Israeli citizenship.

Please welcome Nora Gold! (more…)