Workshop: Monica Gomery, “One Thing I Ask of the Infinite: A Poem for Elul”

At the heart of the High Holidays, a poem pulses.

Psalm 27 is traditionally recited by Jews every day between the new moon of Elul and the end of Sukkot. For seven weeks, we return again and again to this layered, resonant poem—reverberating between the confidence (hubris?), anxiety (humility?), and hope (faith? doubt?) that echo through its verses. The human condition sings through the psalm. The psalm walks beside us on the journey of our soul, as we step toward a new year in an aching world.

What might our practice as contemporary poets bring to this ancient text? And what might this ancient poem stir in our writing today?

In this three-hour workshop, we will explore the themes and longings of Psalm 27—on its own terms, in dialogue with classical commentaries, and in conversation with contemporary poetry. We’ll ask questions of the psalm and wrestle with its language, writing with it and toward it. If you’ve never sat with Psalm 27, you’ll leave better acquainted. And if you know it well (can recite it in your sleep!), this workshop aims to defamiliarize the familiar and offer new readings. You might begin your own version of Psalm 27, or follow the poem somewhere entirely unexpected.

Mónica Gomery is a poet and rabbi. Her third collection of poems, Mother of Mother of, was selected by Ilya Kaminsky for the Helena Whitehill Book Award and is forthcoming from Tupelo Press. She is also the author of Might Kindred, winner of the Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize (University of Nebraska Press, 2022), and Here is the Night and the Night on the Road (Cooper Dillon Books, 2018). Her writing has been awarded the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize and the Sappho Prize for Women Poets, and has been featured on Poem-a-Day and The Slowdown. She was ordained at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, and serves on the clergy team of Kol Tzedek, a vibrant justice-oriented synagogue in Philadelphia. With Ari Lev Fornari she co-created P’tach Libi, a new siddur for Shabbat and festival mornings, and with Moriel Rothman-Zecher she co-hosts the 5-3-5 poetry salon.

Standard Workshop Registration: $108
Workshop Registration for Members: $88

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