Abe Mezrich
Biography
Abe Mezrich wants to know what our sacred texts say about our world right now. Sometimes he writes down his answers to those questions. He is the author of three books: The House at the Center of the World: Poetic Midrash on Sacred Space; Between the Mountain and the Land Lies the Lesson: Poetic Midrash on Sacred Community; and Words for a Dazzling Firmament: Poems/Readings on Bereshit Through Shemot — all through the Jewish Poetry Project of Ben Yehuda Press. In addition, his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including 929, The Forward, Gesher Journal, Lost Balloon, Hevria, Lehrhaus, Tablet, and Zeek. He lives with his wife Kathi and their three children.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
My poems and other writing are nearly exclusively about the parsha and Tanakh. I use my writing as a way in to understand what’s happening in the text on a personal and intellectual level, and to make sense of my world with Jewish texts as my primary lens. That all sounds very abstract, so for one example you can have a look at “Quarantine Seder” that I wrote in 2020 thinking about both the first seder and, well, quarantine.
Published Works
Words for a Dazzling Firmament: Poems/Readings on Bereshit Through Shemot (Ben Yehuda Press/Jewish Poetry Project, 2022)
Between the Mountain and the Land Lies the Lesson: Poetic Midrash on Sacred Community (Ben Yehuda Press/Jewish Poetry Project, 2020)
The House at the Center of the World: Poetic Midrash on Sacred Space (Ben Yehuda Press/Jewish Poetry Project, 2016)
Links to Sample Works
- Hevria, “Quarantine Seder”
- Hevria, “The Complete Story Of The High Priest”
- Words for a Dazzling Firmament (Book Excerpt), “Love”
