70 faces / Torah poems
Phoenicia Publishing, 2011
$14; the book is available at the publisher's website and at Amazon (though more money goes to the independent press if you buy it through them).
Each of the poems in 70 Faces arose in conversation with the Five Books of Moses. These poems interrogate, explore, and lovingly respond to Torah texts -- the uplifting parts alongside the passages which may challenge contemporary liberal theology. Here are responses to the familiar tales of Genesis, the liberation story of Exodus, the priestly details of Leviticus, the desert wisdom of Numbers, and the anticipation of Deuteronomy. These poems balance feminism with respect for classical traditions of interpretation. They enrich any (re)reading of the Bible, and will inspire readers to their own new responses to these familiar texts.
New! "The Akedah Series" from this collection was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011!
"These poems are so out there, so radical, and at the same time so gentle and inviting. Barenblat manages to do work that has passion and truth behind it, without ranting. I love the simple and confident way she deals with the akedah -- and I love the final poem in this collection -- gliding right past heartbreak into renewal, which is what her poems all seem to do." -- Alicia Ostriker, author of For the Love of God: the Bible as an Open Book and The Book of Seventy
"In the poetry of 70 Faces, Rachel Barenblat continues the work of translation and commentary that has occupied her for years as the Velveteen Rabbi. She is as young as our century and as old as Judaism. Her poems have the classic cadence of the scriptures and the fresh wonder of a new mother. These are old words for the modern mind. This is ancient wisdom we can feel and know." -- Pastor Gordon Atkinson, author of RealLivePreacher.com and Turtles All The Way Down
"Rachel Barenblat's Torah poems open the doorway into sacred text so that we can walk in and make it our home. She invites us to bring all of our passion, doubt, humor, humility and chutzpah as we encounter these ancient words and bring them to Life. Through Rachel's skillful, joyful, playful and profound poetry, the Torah opens her secrets to us and invites us into an intimate conversation with Truth." -- Rabbi Shefa Gold, author of Torah Journeys
Through
Collection of miscarriage poems
Self-published, 2009
Free download available here, or available from Lulu at cost ($4.82)
Read more in this blog post.
"This can't have been an easy experience to write anything about at all, let alone to distill into ten brief, searing, and luminous poems. As with Rachel's earlier chaplainbook, these are accessible poems with several different layers of meaning, so I think almost anyone who’s ever gone through a miscarriage will get something out of it. Which is not to say the audience should end there: miscarriage is a subject every bit as relevant and revealing of the human condition as warfare, for example. So why doesn't it get more attention from writers and artists?" -- Dave Bonta, at Via Negativa
The Velveteen Rabbi, Rachel Barenblat, has written a collection of poems about miscarriage -- based on her own -- and offers Through to any reader who wants or needs them. As Dave Bonta points out, miscarriage is not a widely discussed topic, certainly not by men too often, but not even by women. Find comfort and companionship in shared grief and experience. For yourself, or someone you know. -- Deb, at ReadWritePoem
chaplainbook
Laupe House Press, 2006
$9.98; buy a copy here.
Hospital chaplaincy work highlights the central commonalities of sickness, fear, grief, and loss...but also opens the possibility of a sanctified encounter with the sacred. These poems dance and wrestle with the difficult realities of embodied existence, seeking blessing.
"Rachel Barenblat's chaplainbook is work by one who is a poet first and foremost. Barenblat knows how to make a poem, and it is incidental that she has shaped these poems out of her hospital experience. Indeed, she has made seventeen strong poems for this collection. She recognizes that whatever the 'obvious' subject, a poem is always about the poetry of our existence, that ineffable lifting up that occurs when we are most fully human." -- Tom Montague at The Middlewesterner
"The work has breath in it. Reading it at night, alone, in total silence, I can feel the capacity of my heart increasing. I think of the first time Adam laughed and wondered what that strange sensation was. I think of the way fluorescent lights gleam on polished hospital floors." -- Teju Cole
What Stays
Bennington Writing Seminars Alumni Chapbook Series, 2002
$8; order a copy via e-mail.
WHAT STAYS
My mother thinks its goyische
bringing flowers to a gravesite, but
she can't resist the tin shed on the
Austin highway. Three dollars andone yellow rose later she's back
in her cat wheeling around the left
turn punching numbers on her cell
phone, waiting for an answer...
the skies here
Pecan Grove Press
San Antonio, 1995
$7; order a copy here.
These hills ripple with bare matchstick trees
like dogfur standing on end,
brushed against the skin... (--from the poem "I knew a dancer once")As the leaves come off the trees these lines from one of Rachel Barenblat's poems make one remember how Mount Greylock and the Taconic range will look in just a few weeks. Barenblat, a Williams senior who had her first collection of poems published by Pecan Grove Press last month, feels a deep love for her adopted home in New England and its images, along with those of her native San Antonio, Texas, run throughout her work... -- Gail Burns, The Advocate, October 18, 1995
Please note that my writing is licensed under a Creative Commons license. Thanks for respecting it!