In the Jewish tradition, we remember our loved ones by the date of their death. It’s called a Yahrzeit, and to be sure, the memorialization and reciting of the Kaddish is a profound and meaningful practice. But what about those happy days – what about commemorating the days of your parent’s birth? Today was my [...]
The only key to the beach house is missing. Shari flips over pots and pans, tosses papers and magazines. Her appointment with Maya is in twenty minutes. A parrot calls, a mynah clacks. Reggae music wafts from next door. “Jason!” Shari leans over the edge of the veranda railing shouting at the ocean, where her [...]
I had the pleasure of meeting Philip Levine at a benefit for 16 Rivers press some years back. Not only did his work (remember, a poem is rhythm and meter, language and drama but mostly, it’s alchemical) inspire, but he was such a … mensch. No attitude, no superiority complex. Poetry was a job, just [...]
“A Dreamer’s Guide to Cities” San Francisco Bay Press, Virginia/San Francisco: 2009
In her second full-length poetry collection, Joan Gelfand explores the poignancy of living in a world that is war-torn and environmentally damaged. With a nod to the humorous paradox of modern life, Gelfand writes from the vantage point of a mother, an artist, and a Zen meditator. “A Dreamer’s Guide…” looks beyond the surface of our lives at the connections that make live worth living, and the sensual details that color it. Read More
Seeking Center: A Collection of Poems by Joan Gelfand, Two Bridges Press, Richmond CA: 2006
In Seeking Center, Joan Gelfand joins the reader in a free-wheeling discussion, beyond the poems themselves, regarding what is poetry today, here at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Read More