Ben Yakir Li
Biography
Born to Russian immigrants in Israel, Ben Yakir Li moved to the United States as a baby, where he was raised in a Jewishly-observant home. Carrying the traditions of his faith and the customs of his Russian ancestry, Yakir sought to carve out his individual identity as a first-generation American in Philadelphia, where early on he discovered his truest self as a musician and writer. After earning a journalism degree, and fronting several bands on the local scene, Yakir pursued writing with greater seriousness, producing a novel and a book of short stories. Shaped by the Orthodox influence of his family and exposed to the secular world through which he moved, Yakir’s work faces the challenging balance between tradition and modernity with humor and morality. His latest book, a volume of poetry entitled A Bridge is More Magnificent Than Any Tower, explores themes of family, grief, loss, faith, recovery, and hope, furthering his exploration of what it means to be Jewish in our contemporary world.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
My Jewishness is the essence and totality of who I am. It is largely where my identity begins and ends. As natural to me as my features, my limbs, my movement. My poetry, as a result, is born in awe and gratitude, a search for purpose and meaning and blessing, amidst all the struggles and challenges of a life that exists in a world created by Gd. I view many of my poems as letters to, or conversations with Gd. Even the poems that do not overtly include religious themes are written from the perspective and through the prism of what it means to operate in this world within the bounds of morality, humanity, kindness, or compassion, all of which I view as having derived from a single source, all of which I view as my mission to fulfill. My poetry is the tool, the vehicle through which I express the questions and dilemmas, the attempts to arrive at answers, in order to build a better self and a better world.
Published Works
A Bridge is More Magnificent Than Any Tower (Book Baby, 2026)
