Rachel Kann

b. 1973

Current City, State, Country

Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Birth City, State, Country

United States

Biography

Kohenet Rachel Kann, MFA, is a poet and ceremonialist. She has apprenticed in indigenous plant work and Yarasan Sufi vocal work, as well as having trained in dance and drumming healing arts modalities.

She is the 2021 and 2022 Writer-in-Residence for Brandeis Collegiate Institute at American Jewish University. She was the 2020 New England Jewish Poetry Festival’s Featured Poet and a 2020 Cosmic Sister “Women of The Psychedelic Renaissance” awardee for her poetry presentation at the 2020 Spirit Plant Medicine Conference. She was the 2017 Outstanding Instructor of the Year at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

She is a WORD: Bruce Geller Memorial Prize recipient for her latest poetry collection, How to Bless the New Moon, from Ben Yehuda Press.

Her spoken word visual album, The Quickening, has received accolades from film festivals in Florence, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles and New York.

She has performed her poetry in venues such as Disney Concert Hall, Royce Hall, The Broad Stage, The San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, TEDxUCLA, The Jewish Psychedelic Summit, and Tasha Blank’s The Get Down.

She leads both one-on-one and group ceremonies, rituals and creativity workshops for folks from a diversity of backgrounds, with the intention of facilitating the realization of paradise through self-actualization, reintegration, inspiration, authenticity, the release of trauma and an increase in self-love.

Rachel created a literacy curriculum called Waking Up the Words for elementary schools across the Los Angeles Unified School District incorporating play and embodiment to encourage learning, retention, love of language and self-expression.

Her poetry has been featured on Morning Becomes Eclectic and Welcome to Night Vale.

Published Works

How to Bless the New Moon (Ben Yehuda Press, 2019)
A Prayer on Behalf of the Broken Heart (Finishing Line Press, 2017)
10 for Everything (Tangerine Tide/Orange Ocean Press, 2013)

Author Site

Links to Sample Works

Video Reading

Current Title

Creative Writing Instructor / UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and Artist-Educator / Brandeis Collegiate Institute of American Jewish University

Education

MFA, Creative Writing, Antioch University Los Angeles

Subject Matter

Genre