Yetzirah's Annual Summer Conference

GENERATIVE WORKSHOPS (back to top)
Our generative workshops will be led by Rodger Kamenetz, Ilya Kaminsky, and Alicia Ostriker. Participants will be divided into three workshop cohorts, which will attend a different class each day of the conference, allowing participants to work with all three of our faculty. 

RODGER KAMENETZ: WELL AND WELL—MAKING NEW POEMS FROM OLD

“Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”—Genesis 21:19
“…if you look well at his place, he is no longer there”—Psalms 37:10

In Genesis,  Hagar—the stranger—is sent out to the desert with her child to die of thirst. But an angel speaks to her and God opens her eyes. Then she sees a well she had not seen before. I take this as a parable of revision.  

Here’s a second one: Rebbe Nachman, discussing how we might learn to judge others more favorably, advises us to “look well” at them.  In this class we will learn to “look for a well” in our poems, that is look for the living images, and also “look well,” to find what is good in a poem and elevate it. In this generative workshop, I will teach techniques to make new poems by working with your old ones, drawing on my work with dream images, and a process in poetry I call self-midrash.

Our goal is to “look well” for what is good and go deeper into the well of images where our poems come from.

ILYA KAMINSKY: POETIC LINEAGES
We will read poems from Jewish poets of Eastern Europe and elsewhere and we will marvel together on the idea of poetic lineages: how do poets learn from other poets across time and geography? Is there such a thing as a poetics of diaspora? poetics of exile? How do poets enter in conversation with poets that came before them? How do poets bring back to life the authors who came before them and were (unjustly) forgotten? How can our own words grow and change as we overhear conversations between other poets, on and off the page? I hope that in our time together we will all ask impossible questions—and then try to answer them with unpredictable new lyrics.

ALICIA OSTRIKER: RE-DEEMING SCRIPTURE: THE JOYS OF MIDRASH

She is a tree of life to those that lay hold on her.—Proverbs 3:18

There are so many things the narratives of Torah don’t tell us. This is where midrash comes in. According to tradition, Torah is not words alone. Torah is black fire written on white fire. Through midrash, we can imagine the unsaid, the white fire. We can read between the lines. We can see the connection between our ancestors and ourselves, and we can see that Torah is not only a very ancient Book–it is a totally modern one too. It mirrors our lives and the life of society, at least as well as any novel, and maybe better. It can be a window into our own souls. Small wonder that there has been an explosion of midrash writing in America. Small wonder that increasing numbers of poets today are trying their hand at midrash writing, using Biblical characters and situations to illuminate the world we live in—and discovering new meanings in the ancient stories.

No deep knowledge of the Bible is required for this generative poetry workshop. Be prepared to surprise yourself and others by writing something you never thought you would write. Be prepared to laugh, and perhaps to weep. Be prepared for illumination.  

ELIGIBILITY & FEES (back to top)
Regardless of your religious practice or lack thereof, of whether you think of yourself or your writing as “Jewish enough,” applications are open to anyone who self-identifies as a Jewish poet and feels that such a gathering would be meaningful to them and to their poetry. In addition, we require the following:

• All applicants must be 21 years of age or older by the start of the Conference in June 2023
• To cultivate community, all applicants will be required to stay on campus (though apartments will be shared, all rooms will be single-occupancy, with accessible accommodations available)
• We also ask that participants attend all official events, unless their health requires otherwise
• All applicants will need to show proof of COVID vaccination and at least one booster, as well as a negative test taken within 24-hours before the first day of the conference
  • All participants will agree to take a COVID test if requested due to possible exposure (tests will be provided). More extensive COVID policies can be found below
• The non-refundable application fee is $20 (this can be waived if this fee is a hardship)

APPLICATION TIMELINE (back to top)

February 1, 2023: Application period opens for all prospective participants

*To aid in the ease of our considerations, we ask that you apply as early as possible within the given application window.

For SCHOLARS & FELLOWS
March 24, 2023: Application deadline
April 24, 2023: Notifications sent to all applicants
May 1, 2023: Registration deadline (a deposit of $200 will be due at this time. This will go toward Scholar’s room & board. It will be returned Fellows after the conference.)

*a waitlist of Scholars & Fellows will be created if an opportunity becomes available
**applicants whom we are not able to accommodate as a Scholar or a Fellow will, if they are interested, be considered for a Contributor slot

For CONTRIBUTORS
April 10, 2023: Application deadline
April 30-June 9, 2023: Rolling acceptances (with rolling registration deadlines TBA)

APPLICATION CATEGORIES: CONTRIBUTORS, SCHOLARS, & FELLOWS (back to top)

CONTRIBUTORS

Applicants who wish to join the Yetzirah Summer Conference as Contributors should have a deep love of and commitment to poetry and interest in engaging further with its intersections with Jewish culture and tradition. Some record of publication, as well as previous experience attending generative creative writing workshops is recommended but not required. 

• • View Contributor Application
  • Fees: $1,200 tuition, which includes room & board

SCHOLARS

Applicants who wish to join the Yetzirah Summer Conference as Scholars may have published up to one full-length collection of poetry.

Competitive applicants will have published, since January 1, 2015, (not including self-published work):

• at least 20 or more individual poems or pages of poetry that appear in at least five literary journals, anthologies, or publications that regularly include poetry as a portion of their format.
  • Up to 16 pages of that poetry may be from a single volume of poetry that is fewer than 48 pages (e.g. a chapbook)

We believe people of any age can be an “emerging” poet and welcome writers who fulfill the above requirements, young and old, to apply for this fellowship.

• • View Scholar Application
  • Fees: $500 for room & board only (funding for Scholars covers the full $700 tuition )
  • In addition to waived tuition, each Scholar will be paired with a Conference Fellow to receive mentorship that includes a manuscript evaluation (of no more than 10 pages)

FELLOWS

Applicants who wish to join the Yetzirah Summer Conference as established poets should have published at least two full-length collections by a nationally-distributed press and have a strong record of publication.