Laurel Kallen
Current City, State, Country
Birth City, State, Country
Biography
Laurel Kallen is a poet and fiction writer who teaches creative writing at Lehman College (CUNY). She was born in Newark, New Jersey, and later lived in San Francisco and Berkeley before returning to the East Coast and settling in New York City. Her work has appeared in venues such as Atlanta Review, Big Bridge, Portland Review, Devil’s Lake, and Amarillo Bay. She is the author of The Forms of Discomfort, a collection of poetry by Finishing Line Press. Kallen was a speech writer for both former New York City Mayor David Dinkins and former New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio. As such, she often composed speeches on Jewish topics for events involving the Jewish community. Kallen has reviewed poetry for American Book Review, Pleiades, and Big City Lit. Laurel frequently incorporates Jewish themes in her work. She has been a volunteer in YIVO’s Records Room for nine years and has studied Yiddish in the YIVO Summer Intensive as well as through The Workers’ Circle.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
Judaism and Jewish culture inform my poetry both explicitly and implicitly. A mention of light, for example, inevitably evokes the image of shabbos candles. Yiddish phrases I heard in my parents’ and grandparents’ conversations often wend their way into my poems, as do symbols like the mezuzah and the Star of David. Also frequently evoked are Jewish life cycle rituals such as a baby naming, a bris, a bar or bas mitzvah and the profound rituals that surround death and burial.
Published Works
“21 Leslie Street, Newark,” “I Was a Lamp,” and “Dictionary.com” (poems), Westview, Spring 2016
“Is There a Tree If You Don’t Hear It Fall?” (poem), Diverse Voices Quarterly, Summer 2015
“The Things I Want” (poem), Juked, June 2015
“Striptease” and “One Plausible Explanation” (poems), Willow Review, Spring 2014
“March 26th” and “The Spanish Civil War in My Family” (poems), Jabberwock, August 2013
The Forms of Discomfort (poetry collection), Finishing Line Press, 2012
“Ogunquit” (poem), Amarillo Bay, August 2012
“Tongue Twister” (poem), Devil’s Lake, Spring 2012
“Dusk Takes Us For a Walk” (poem), Portland Review, March 2012
“Shopping Trip” (poem), Atlanta Review, Spring 2012.
“Protein Obsession” (poem), La Petite Zine, 24, Spring 2010.
“Necklace,” “Not Speaking,” “The Trouble With Daylight” (poems), Legal Studies Forum, XXXIII:2 2009.
“Druids,” “Sound Bite” (poems), The Best of Stain, I, Winter 2008 – 2009
“Love and Its Antithesis” (poem), Poetry in Performance, 37, 2009
“Tuna Sandwich” (poem), Poetry in Performance, 36, 2008
“Summer of 1955” (poem), Poetry in Performance, 35, 2007
“A Curse” (poem), Promethean, 37, Spring 2010
“Message” (poem), Promethean, 36:1, Spring 2009
“Landscape” (poem), Promethean, 35:1, Spring 2008
“Tracks” (short story), Big Bridge, 15th Anniversary Edition, May 2012
“Sacred Cows” (short story), Big Bridge, 15th Anniversary Edition, May 2012
“East Sixth Street” (short story), Global City Review, 18, Fall 2007
“The Unsexiest Shoe” (essay), It’s All About Shoes, ed., Pamela L. Laskin, Austin: Plain View Press, 2015
Review of Cabbie 1971, 1972: True Tales, by N.G. Haiduck (American Book Review, forthcoming in 2025)
Review of Why No Goodbye by Pamela Laskin (American Book Review, 2022)
Review of Pamela Laskin’s Ronit & Jamil (American Book Review, 2017)
Review of Shira Dentz’s Black Seeds on a White Dish (Big City Lit, 2012)
Review of In Times of Danger, by Paul Oppenheimer, Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing & Reviews (32.1, 2012)
Review of When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother, by Melissa Broder (American Book Review – Volume 31, Number 6, 2010)
Column on germ phobia (article) (Montessori Life, New York, 1994)
“The Montessori Approach” (article) (Big Apple Parents’ Paper, New York, 1994)
“The Montessori Approach” (article) (Mothering. Santa Fe, 1993)
Author Site
Links to Sample Works
Current Title
Education
Bennington College
City College of San Francisco
Queens College
San Francisco State University, BA
UC Berkeley, MA, French
Cardozo School of Law, JD
City College of New York, MFA