Author Archive
Wordsworth at Passover
Guest post by Alicia Jo Rabins One of the fantastic things about the Torah as a literary work is how it combines impossibly broad swaths of narrative (the world is created, a flood destroys it, etc.) with precise details (Rachel, having stolen her father’s idols and hidden them
Spiritual Twins, Poetry Chavrutas
Guest post by Alicia Jo Rabins There’s nothing like those years when you don’t yet have what you are working for. There’s a lot of freedom because there’s so much possibility. You need friends who are working for something, too…Everything starts with an all-night conversation. Find a spiritual
Real Risk: Writing as a Performance Art
Guest post by Alicia Jo Rabins A palace must have passages….a poem must have transitions. –Samuel Johnson (via Barbara Guest) In making poems, we cross from the known to the unknown. We destroy the drywall of the consciousness-room we’ve been living in, look at the sky beyond, and then
Cleveland and the Art of Living
“The Full Cleveland and the Salon of the Refused”: Part II Guest post by Alicia Jo Rabins Read Part I here. III. Julie Patton, an artist, writer, visionary and teacher with roots in Cleveland, asked this question (about Cleveland the place, not Cleveland the suit from last week) in
The Full Cleveland and the Salon of the Refused
Today we welcome back Alicia Jo Rabins, our second guest blogger from the Winter 2009-10 Ploughshares. Thanks to all who read and commented on our first Get Behind the Plough with Peter B. Hyland. We encourage you to use this space to ask questions and continue conversations. “The Full
Two Ways of Sailing with Words, by Alicia Jo Rabins
As both a poet and a songwriter, I’m constantly journeying between two distinct ways of making art out of words. Working simultaneously in multiple disciplines has its challenges, but for me, poetry and songwriting are inextricably linked, and they feed each other. I work on poems backstage, and write