Bracha Nechama Bomze
Current City, State, Country
Birth City, State, Country
Biography
Bracha Nechama Bomze is a native New Yorker who visits the ocean whenever possible, dreaming she is a dolphin in human form. Her first political demonstration, in junior high, was the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. A “Take Bronx Out of the War” button pinned close to her heart, she joined nationwide student walk-outs, this with both parents’ full support, though she was otherwise not permitted to skip school unless she had a fever. Like her Aunt Rosie before her, she will love justice, and strive to protect our Big Blue Marble, for as long as she breathes. Bracha lives in the 1903 apartment she calls “Carol’s Conservatory” with her mellifluous partner of decades, legal wife since 2008. Ever since receiving a personal blessing from peace activist and Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, Bracha remembers to notice and to celebrate “what’s not wrong in the world” (those refreshing moments of life which co-exist simultaneously with ongoing violence and cruelty), so as not to “drown in the tears of compassion.” Her name means “Blessing of Solace,” which she offers to you. Bracha Nechama Bomze’s book-length poem, Love Justice, (3Ring Press, Brooklyn), won her PEN author membership in 2015. She has read at Poets House, Book Culture, Woodstock Poetry Society, New York City World AIDS Day Commemoration 2023, and Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition events.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
My connection to Jewish culture is so essential, and so powerful, that I am unable to separate myself from its core presence in my neshama, and therefore in my poetry.
Published Works
Love Justice, (3Ring Press)
Author Site
Links to Sample Works
Education
Empire State College, M.A.
New York University, B.A.