Great Regulars: In [Freddy] Frankel's rendering,

Job is at once the ancient figure of the Bible ("Desolate on the dung-hill"), as well as a more modern victim of calamity, perhaps a Holocaust victim ("my life aflame like books banned"). The final line makes Job a thoroughly contemporary character, as he ponders the impossibility of obtaining justice for irreparable suffering.

from Forward: The Arty Semite: National Poetry Month: An Ancient and Modern Job

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Matthue Roth, who we're introducing today as part of our National Poetry Month celebration, finds inspiration in the rhythms and exuberant energy of slam poetry gatherings and hip-hop. Watching the video below, it seems impossible to opt for a mere printed version of it.

from Forward: The Arty Semite: National Poetry Month: In Person

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One of the interviewees, Maya Pindyck, who has already made an appearance on the blog last year, is here again, with two poems,"Shabbat" and "This."

"Shabbat" approaches talmudic rhetoric in a Kafkaesque manner--by playing with the language of laws so abstract and obscure that they may have lost their footing completely.

from Forward: The Arty Semite: National Poetry Month: Shabbat and Palm-Sized Watermelons

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