Writing poems in a dark season
The truth about my (lack of) religious upbringing, and poems of darkness and light, including one that was just published π
Based on the fact that The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined centers on poems about a bible story, you might think that I was raised in a religious household.Β
Not so.
I sometimes joke that assimilation was my family of originβs religion.
Growing up, my mother decorated our home with red, gold, and silver ornaments and boughs of berry-flecked holly at Christmastime, and our Channukah gifts were wrapped in red and green paper covered with little Santas.
We also painted Easter eggs, which my mother would display in a glass bowl on the seder table at Passover.
My Jewish education consisted of what little my teachers could impress on me on one afternoon a week during Hebrew school. More than any bible stories, prayers, or Hebrew vocabulary, I remember ducking out of class to meet my girlfriends in the bathroom down the hall where we gossiped until we inevitably got caught and were sent back.
I dropped out altogether after sixth grade.
In college, I studied the Holocaust. But my Jewish education really picked up during the years I worked as a reporter at a regional newspaper in New England, where I was one of just a few Jews in the newsroom. Each time a Jewish holiday came around an editor or reporter would appear at my desk to ask what it was, how to spell it (I guess our Chicago Style manual back then was of little use), and how to cover it.
I probably knew little more than they did, but I was too proud to admit it. Instead, I bluffed and said, βIβm busy right now, but Iβll come find you in a few minutes to explain.βΒ
As soon as they were out of earshot, Iβd pick up the phone to call my grandmother, ask questions, take notes, and return to my colleague with false confidence and an answer.
Later, after my grandmother passed away, I turned to Auntie Google as needed to round out my Jewish education.
Writing poems for The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined has involved a new intensity of inquiry and study and has led me to learn facts, practices, rituals, and observances from my tradition that Iβd never known about before.
I love sharing what Iβm learning by bringing these poems into the world and discussing my process with you.
Todayβs poem
Todayβs poem, βThe history lesson is slipped to us like a note passed between school girls,β is about how I learned about the Holocaust. A heavy topic like this is probably not appropriate for the holiday season. Except thereβs this:
This is also a season of deepening darkness, as we approach the solstice and the shortest day of the year. And β¦
This year in particular, no amount of holiday cheer can (or should) distract us from the unrelenting devastation of war. Plus β¦
I havenβt been able to figure out what a good time would be to share a poem that references the Holocaust.
But while todayβs poem speaks of some of the pain and complication of learning (and learning to live with) the grim legacy of persecution and genocide that is woven into Jewish experience, thatβs not the whole story.
Writing the Sarah poems has rooted me in the ground of my ancestral traditions. Seeded in that soil I have found wisdom, joy, and spiritual beauty, too.
That clichΓ©: βA diamond earns its sparkle from the pressure it enduresβ keeps coming to mind as I try to explain these polarities of challenge and treasure.
But I donβt believe we need to pay the price of pain to shine. Maybe all I want to say is that darkness is real.
And also it is possible β it is necessary to beam some light into it so we can find our way through.
Todayβs poem
Now that youβve received the content warning above, I invite you into my fifth-grade Hebrew School classroom, where the lesson I learned one autumn afternoon was surely not what the teacher had intended.
Listen to todayβs poem:
βThe history lesson is slipped to us like a note passed between school girlsβ by Tzivia Gover, Β©οΈ Copyright, all rights reserved.
Light up the darkness with a love poem
My poem, "Before the Bite," about a moment in which Sarah falls in love with Abraham (when they were still young Sarai and Abram), was published in The Other Journal this week!
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