July 27 “Grappling with Grief in Poems” Workshop with Eve Grubin

The period leading up to Tisha Ba’av includes the saddest days on the Jewish calendar. One week before Tisha Ba’av we’ll meet and read and write poems that touch on sadness, delve into loss, and consider the various forms of grief. Writing about trauma allows us to connect to this aspect of Judaism and to an often repressed part of our inner life. We’ll read poems by Gerald Stern, Langston Hughes, Marie Howe, Emily Dickinson, Yehoshua November, Robert Frost and more. And we’ll write our own poems inspired by the ones we read. Participants will be given a group of “comfort poems” at the end of class to look forward to reading and responding to with their own poems after Tisha Ba’av.