Book of Life

The Book of Life: Selected Jewish Poems, 1979-2011
By Alicia Suskin Ostriker

Like many Jews, in and out of the synagogue, I wrestle with sacred tradition like Jacob wrestling the angle. The poems gathered here were born of this wrestling, which can never be over —from the Preface

“Poet Alicia Ostriker is also a highly original scholar/teacher of midrash, the commentary and exegesis of scripture  (the same root as madrasa, place of study). Here she ‘studies’ Jewish history, Jewish passion, Jewish contradictions, in a compendium of learned, crafted, earthy and outward-looking poems that show how this quest has informed and enriched her whole poet’s trajectory.” —Marilyn Hacker