Sleeve as Packing

By Daniel Owen

creating usefrom the word lovingor of itof that action of a windowagain and againas if to learnwhat could be lazewould be worth notingnotating or takento a garden full of radiant cabbageanxious for employmentwindows of working

 

the garden weepsin the airas sleeping is finesometimeson a wrack of openingpointsthe monologue walksto the center of the roomwe are listening drinking in circleswe like babiesbabies with books in their teeththey walk clappingfor apparent newnessin drift

 

reason washes on the substitute sublimeits taste of hair and salt for a calendaris in its actionhours that will comepromising a hem a hema root a root

These Are a Few of My Favorite Jews

With antisemitism on the worldwide rise and attacks in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY scaring people in ways they may have not imagined would reach such startling heights, it seemed an appropriate moment to highlight and give praise to some of my favorite contemporary Jewish poets. Recently Ariana Reines described in a characteristically heartfelt post that she felt grateful for a review that highlighted and understood her within a context of Jewish and Judaic thought in part because it highlighted something that can sometimes feel closeted even when loudly proclaimed or pronounced. While I make no claims to try and know or understand what each of these poets' relationship to their religious background might be, I've often wondered what might bring us all together, if there could be such a thing as a Jewish poetic sensibility and what is at stake, what it means to even have the inclination towards this question? Just last night at the Poetry Project David Henderson said that if you live in New York long enough you are basically Jewish. I'm sure we've all heard some coy version of this half-joke before and while we Jews may seem aplenty in NYC, this comment struck me as particularly unaware of what it is like to be Jewish in any city or state right now. And maybe, though I'm not letting Henderson off the hook entirely, in some way it is because we talk about our jewishness so little. So I ask again, what does it mean to claim or divvy out jewishness for a city? for a mindset? for a poem? This list is just a sampling, for there are many more Jews that I love that did not make this small playlist, many more that I don't yet know exist.

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