Photo Credit: Leslie Snow

Judith Kerman

b. 1945

Current City, State, Country

Woodstock, New York, USA

Birth City, State, Country

Bayside, New York, USA

Biography

Judith Kerman’s most recent book, definitions, was published by Fomite Press in May 2021. She has published ten prior collections of poetry, three books of translations of poetry and fiction by Cuban and Dominican women, and edited two scholarly anthologies about science fiction film and television. She was a Fulbright Scholar in the Dominican Republic in 2002. A retired university professor and administrator, she founded Earth’s Daughters magazine in Buffalo, NY (1971 to present) and runs Mayapple Press, located in Woodstock, NY. She is Vice Chair of the Woodstock, NY, Planning Board, and an active singer and craftsperson.

What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?

My 2016 book Aleph, broken: Poems from My Diaspora (Broadstone Books) explores my Jewish identity and the way personal experience, including travel in other cultures, has pointed me back toward more active participation in Jewish life.

Published Works

Poetry
definitions (Fomite Press, 2021)
Aleph, broken: Poems from My Diaspora (Broadstone Books, 2016)
Postcards from America (Post-Traumatic Press, 2015)
Mothering (hypertext edition – Eastgate Quarterly 2.2, 2008)
Galvanic Response (March Street Press, 2005)
Plane Surfaces/Plano de Incidencia; with Spanish translations by Johnny Durán (CLEH, 2002)
Three Marbles (Cranberry Tree Press, 1999)
Mothering & Dream of Rain (Ridgeway Press, 1996)
Driving for Yellow Cab (Tout Press, 1985)
Mothering (Uroboros Books/Allegany Mountain Press, 1978; Honorable Mention in Poetry, Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award)
The Jakoba Poems (White Pine Press, 1976)
Obsessions (Intrepid Press, Beau Fleuve Series, 1974)

Translations
Entre Dos Silencios/Between Two Silences: Short Fiction by Hilma Contreras (Mayapple Press, 2013)
Praises & Offenses: Three Women Poets from the Dominican Republic (Boa Editions Ltd., 2009)
Carta de Amor al Rey Tut-Ankh-Amen/Love Letter to King Tut-Ankh-Amen: Dulce María Loynaz (CLEH, 2002)
Dulce María Loynaz: A Woman in Her Garden (White Pine Press, 2002)

Edited Works
The Fantastic in Holocaust Literature and Film: Critical Perspectives; with John Edgar Browning (Mcfarland Books, 2015)
Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991; second edition 1997)

Author Site

Links to Sample Works

Video Reading

Current Title

Professor of English Emerita, Saginaw Valley State University

Education

University of Rochester, B.A. with Honors, 1967
University of Buffalo, M.A., 1973
University of Buffalo, Ph.D., 1977

Languages of Publication(s) and Poets Translated

Spanish – Dulce María Loynaz, Ylonka Nacidit-Perdomo, Angela Hernández Nuñez, Aída Cartagena Portalatín, Hilma Contreras, other Cuban and Dominican women writers

Subject Matter

Genre