(no-name)
Biography
Elaine Mintzer is a poet, teacher, and traveler who grew up in the valley north of Los Angeles. After high school, she spent a year on a kibbutz, where she discovered she did not want a career picking fruit, thinning sugar beets, or wielding a machete to harvest artichokes.
She earned a BA in Creative Writing from UCLA and an MS in Education from USC. Over the course of her teaching career, she supported students across a wide range of subjects, developing a comfort with the scientific and mathematical language that often appears in her poetry.
Elaine has studied writing with Kate Braverman, Jack Grapes, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Carine Topal, Ellen Bass, and Eric Morago. Her work has appeared in literary journals including Anacapa Review, Beloit Poetry Review, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Sheila-Na-Gig, as well as in an online childbirth periodical and Scientific American.
She also wrote poems for and performed with Ballet Randolph in Miami Beach. Her work has been anthologized in 13 Los Angeles Poets, Last Call Chinaski, and Women in a Golden State, among others. Her first poetry collection, Natural Selections, was published by Bombshelter Press in 2005. Drink From the River was published by Moon Tide Press in 2026.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
All those years of Hebrew school are part of my foundational identity. The Bible, the holidays, the full moon sometimes find their way into my work.
Published Works
“Drink From the River” (Moon Tide Press, 2026)
“Natural Selections” (Bombshelter Press, 2005)
“Thirteen Los Angeles Poets” (Bombshelter Press, 1997)
Links to Sample Works
Anacapa Review, “Ars Biblica” https://anacapareview.com/elaine-mintzer/
Scientific American, “E=mc2”. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/poem-e-mc/
