a hearth for Jewish poetry

Alexis Krasilovsky

Birth Year
b. 1950
Current City
Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth City
Juneau, Alaska, USA
Genre(s)
Poetry, Nonfiction, Fiction, Screenwriting
Author’s Website
Author Reading
Photo credit: Photo Credit: Kim Gottlieb-Walker

Biography

Alexis Krasilovsky is the author of Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems (Cyberwit, 2022), finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards, and Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling (Routledge, 2018), 2nd place winner, 2019 International Writers Awards. She is also an award-winning filmmaker of several poetry films, including The Parking Lot of Dreams (2021).

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

Several of my Jewish-themed poems also appear in my films, such as “183,000” in the film Exile (1984), a personal documentary about assimilation; “The Earthquake Haggadah” in the film Epicenter U. (1995); and “Camp Terezin” in Camp Terezin (1999). I have also written about the relationship between Jews and Blacks in the poems “Sensational Relatives” (published in Southern Exposure) and “Pass the Questions: A Passover Poem” (aired on Arts Express, WBAI-FM radio in New York City and also available in my book, Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems).

Published Works

Poetry
Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems (Cyberwit, 2022; Finalist for 2022 International Book Awards)
Some Women Writers Kill Themselves (A Street Agency Publication, 1983, 1985)

Prose
Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling (Routledge, 2018; 2nd Place Winner of 2019 International Writers Awards)
Sex and the Cyborg Goddess (Rafael Film, LLC, 2017; published under the pseudonym Alexis Rafael; Winner of 2018 Irwin Award for Best #MeToo Novel of the Year)
Women Behind the Camera: Conversations with Camerawomen (Praeger, 1997)

Links to Sample Works

Subject Matter

Antisemitism, Childhood, Cultural Identity, Death, Diaspora, Eastern Europe, Family, Gender, Gender Violence, Grief & Elegy, History, Jewish Mysticism, Jewishness, Loss, Love, Misogyny, Motherhood/Fertility, Mythology, Parenting, Sex, Sexuality, Shoah, Genocide, Trauma, Multidisciplinary, Visual Art, Feminism, Documentary Poetics, Race.