Workshop: Hila Ratzabi
- Six Wednesdays: 2/12, 2/19, 2/26, 3/5, 3/12, 3/19, 1:00 pm-2:15 pm EST.
- If you’re not able to attend a class, all classes will be recorded and available for later viewing
- Handouts will be sent with the texts to be discussed
$324—standard registration
$266—18% discounted registration for Yetzirah Members (you can become a member here)
*As we want our offerings to be accessible to all, there is a pay-what-you-can option if this pricing is a hardship.
“Each and every grass has a song” – Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav
The Jewish environmental movement has sought to excavate and breathe new life into ancient texts that call us to right relationship with this fragile and holy earth. Jewish poets vividly describe the human encounter with plants, animals, and the elements where they often find intimations of the Divine or cause for protest on behalf of the non-human world. Together we’ll read poetry and other Jewish writings that will inspire our own experiments with ecopoetry. Some poets we will read include Marge Piercy, Muriel Rukeyser, Alicia Ostriker, Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Stanley Moss, Stuart Kestenbaum, Phillip Levine, Mónica Gomery, and more! We’ll engage in writing exercises, some of which will take us outside to our local environments to allow us to listen to, and translate, the voices of the earth. You will come away with a deepened appreciation for Jewish wisdom on the environment and a number of poem drafts that will help you envision your personal Torah of the earth.
“Songs of the Grass: Exploring Jewish Ecopoetry was a powerful class for me to take when I was working on a project related to climate justice and responding with bravery to emotions around climate change. Looking at these issues through a Jewish lens added depth to my writing and thinking. Hila created a thoughtful and engaged community in the course, and sessions included rich discussion of source texts followed by writing exercises that were both generative and nourishing.”– Elisa McCool, previous participant in Songs of the Grass
Hila Ratzabi’s first full-length book of poetry, There Are Still Woods (June Road Press, 2022), won a 2023 gold Nautilus Award and was a finalist for a National Indie Excellence Award. She was a finalist for the North American Review’s 2021 Terry Tempest Williams Prize in Creative Nonfiction, for the Fourth Genre Steinberg Essay Prize (2019), and for the Fifth Annual Narrative Magazine Poetry Contest (2013). She is the author of a poetry chapbook, The Apparatus of Visible Things (2009). Her poetry has been published in Narrative, Linebreak, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Adroit Journal, and other journals, and in The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. She has received scholarships and fellowships to the Willapa Bay AiR residency, the Vermont Studio Center, the Crater Lake National Park residency, and the Arctic Circle Residency. Ratzabi is the former editor-in-chief and poetry editor of Storyscape and holds an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She was director of virtual content & programs at Ritualwell.org (2015–2023). Ratzabi is currently director of communications at North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, IL. She lives in Oak Park, IL, with her husband and two children. Visit Hila’s profile in our Discover Jewish Poets database.
Though we encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience, all sessions will be recorded and sent to participants.