October 19: “In the beginnings: Writing in Conversation with Sacred Texts” Workshop with Jessica Jacobs

Texts like the Torah and New Testament are often presented as not only sacred but inviolate and above reproach. For many of us, this means these texts and their difficult subject matter can feel far from us, or so close and well known we can no longer really see them. Yet it is here we find the stories and rituals, commandments and prohibitions, that—whether or not we follow a religious tradition of our own—have shaped the world in which we live. With close readings of work by poets including Marie Howe, Ada Limon, Leila Chatti, and Eleanor Wilner, in this workshop, Jessica Jacobs, author of unalone, a collection of poems in conversation with the Book of Genesis, will share how drawing on the ancient Jewish practice of midrashic inquiry, as well as the Jesuit practice of Ignatian Contemplation, can help us to delve into a text and find the stories and knowledge waiting beyond the surface layer of the page.