Poets on the Psalms

(Paperback)

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Reverential, celebratory, antagonistic, and even erotic, this remarkable collection of essays interprets the Psalms as a collection of poetry. Written by 14 acclaimed poets, the essays approach the Psalms from a personal, often autobiographical perspective, demonstrating how relevant they remain for todays readers. Alicia Ostriker examines the Psalms glory and their terror in a moving essay that revels in their moods of joy while acknowledging the brutality they invoke, linking their violence to events such as 9/11, the Palestinian uprisings, and the Rwandan massacres. Weaving autobiographical anecdotes with scholarly introspection, Enid Dame provides a Jewish explanation of Psalm 22, while editor Lynn Domina contemplates the pastoral life as she connects the everyday with phrases from the Psalms. From a former nun to a self-described left-wing Jew, from a Midrashic scholar to a Texas rancher, the contributors mirror the wide swath of humanity interested in, and affected by, the Psalms. Contributors include Robert A. Ayres, David Citino, Enid Dame, Madeline DeFrees, Lynn Domina, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Angie Estes, Diane Glancy, Janet McCann, Alicia Ostriker, Carl Phillips, Pattiann Rogers, Catherine Sasanov, and Daniel Tobin.

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"Editor Lynn Domina brings together fourteen modern-day poets providing remarkable reverential, celebratory, antagonistic, and even erotic interpretations of the Psalms, approaching them from a personal, often autobiographical perspective, demonstrating how relevant they remain for today's readers."-- Christian Newswire

Author Bio

Lynn Domina is the author of a collection of poetry, Corporal Works, as well as books on Lorraine Hansberrys A Raisin in the Sun and Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony. Her more recent poetry appears or is forthcoming in the Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, Tiferet: A Journal of Spirituality and Literature, and Christianity and Literature, and she will soon be the featured poet at Heliotrope magazines website (heliopoems.com). She lives in the western Catskill region of New York.