Chana Bloch: Happiness Research
Scientists are closing in on
the crowded quarter of the brain
where happiness lives. They like to think
it’s hunkered down in the left prefrontal cortex.
Chana Bloch: A Marriage
Theirs was the one with the noisy bedsprings.
How does a child solve a riddle like that?
Scritchity-screech
—are they fighting again?
Chana Bloch: Memento Mori
Unblessed in a downburst, I lost
my leafy summer, my lovely,
my crest, my crown.
Chana Bloch: The New World
That’s the old country for you:
they ate with their hands, went hungry to bed,
slept in their stink. When pain knocked,
they opened the door.
Charles Reznikoff: The lamps are burning in the synagogue
Let us begin then humbly. Not by asking:
Who is This you pray to? Name Him;
define Him. For the answer is:
we do not name Him.
Once out of a savage fear, perhaps;
now out of knowledge—of our ignorance.
Yehuda Amichai: A Child is Something Else Again
A child is something else again. Wakes up
in the afternoon and in an instant he’s full of words,
in an instant he’s humming, in an instant warm,
instant light, instant darkness.
Michael Simms: The Story of Autumn House Press (1998-2020)
Most literary presses fade away when the founder leaves, so I cannot tell you how much it thrills me that AHP continues into the second generation.
Philip Terman: Darwish and Amichai Share Poems in Heaven
the breath of their words
shaping the winds
across the deserts
of their homeland,
which is the same homeland
Clarissa Pinkola Estés: The Four Rabbinim
One night four rabbinim were visited by an angel who awakened them and carried them to the Seventh Vault of the Seventh Heaven. There they beheld the sacred Wheel of … Continue reading
Jonathan Cook: Israel Repurposes Nakba Myths to Justify Today’s Massacre in Gaza
The only legitimate struggle for Palestinians, it seems, is keeping quiet, allowing their lands to be plundered and their children to be starved. Palestinians rush to the border fence with … Continue reading
Chana Bloch: The Messiah of Harvard Square
Every year some students would claim to be the Messiah, It was the rabbi who had to deal with them. He had jumped, years ago, from a moving boxcar on … Continue reading
Chana Bloch: Fortress
. Silence is a strenuous language but we have chosen it. A shut door, a shrug, stone upon stone. . The stones have a history. They were pulled from the … Continue reading
Chana Bloch: Death March, 1945
. “There was a muddy ditch at the side of the road where the road took a sudden turn. If I could jump —.” Five Muselmänner abreast, the trekking dead, … Continue reading
Chana Bloch: Potato Eaters
My grandmother never did learn to write. “Making love” was not in her lexicon; I wonder if she ever took off her clothes when her husband performed his conjugal duties. … Continue reading
