Recently Published Poetry

My grandfather, an orthodox rabbi, was born in Palestine, but spent most of his life in the United States. After raising a family here and seeing more than a dozen grandchildren growing up, he returned to live out the remainder of his life in Israel. Two of his sons and a number of grandchildren and great grandchildren followed. All told, more than a hundred descendants lived there the last time my parents visited.

I have never traveled there. I have never had any desire to go other than to visit family, especially as I learned more and more about the Nakba, Israel's apartheid, genocidal settler expansion, and attempts to ethnically cleanse the Indigenous Palestinian population over the past three-quarters of a decade.

Israel's atrocities have accelerated over the past year and I express my disgust, detestation, and despair in my poetry. You can read one of those poems, "You are the Monsters", in the inaugural issue of Defiance & Dialogue (page 6) from The Blunt Space, a "hub for art, advocacy, and culture" where being blunt is a movement, "where we defy the rules" to be "authentically creative without choosing between our art, our culture, or our mission." The first issue "is dedicated to individuals and communities fighting against societal imperialism and oppression."

Note: as an anti-Zionist Jew I very much understand (having personally experienced the latter) that Anti-Zionism ≠ Anti-Semitism.

The Autumn 2024 Issue of Panoplyzine, a literary zine featuring "a wide-ranging and impressive array of writing", includes my Fibonacci poem, "Mourning". (Cover Image: Photo by Amanda Pope)

Fibonacci poems are based on the Fibonacci mathematical sequence: each line has the number of syllables that are the sum of the previous two lines. Although named after an Italian mathematician, the sequence was first described by Indian mathematicians a millennia earlier.

Panoplyzine offers "a fresh new look at poetry and short prose", publishing "lively new insights in creativity, outlook, perspective, and analysis."

Oregon Health Equity Alliance created the Oregon COVID Storytelling Project as a platform for Oregonians to share their stories and experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Project features three of my poems including "Alone, Now and Forever", written specifically for the project. The project also re-publishes "Eugenics", which first appeared, September 2022, in The Trick Is To Keep Breathing and What Color is Your Privilege? and "Normal Life" first published, August 2020, in CHAOS: The Poetry Vortex.

Recently Published Non-Fiction

"Relentless Reality" "

In "Relentless Reality", I review Domestic Bodies, Jennifer Ruth Jackson's debut poetry collection published by Querencia Press in February.

A collection of very short poems, Domestic Bodies explores living as a crip in a world designed to prevent our access to shopping, government, education, events, travel, life. If you or a loved one face a cancer diagnosis, if you grieve the loss of a parent or relationship, if you live with disabilities, look for solace in the pages of this collection.

Whale Road Review, "A Journal of Poetry & Short Prose", includes my review, and my first contrapuntal poem, "Contemplating Continuing as a Crip" in the Summer 2024 issue.

"Accommodation v Inclusion"

Accommodation v Inclusion started as an angry email, never sent because the intended recipient changed an in-person-only event to hybrid. Since many other entities won't offer online event options, I turned the email into essay. It leads the winter issue of Breath & Shadow, a quarterly journal of disability culture and literature.

A project of Ability Maine, Breath & Shadow, was the first online literary journal with a focus on disability and features poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, drama, and other writing that examines the human experience of living with disability.