Telling and Remembering: A Century of American Jewish Poetry

Bringing together a century of Jewish American poets writing on Jewish themes, Telling and Remembering honors the remarkable contributions American Jewish poets -- both well and lesser known -- have made to Jewish expression and American poetry. Ranging from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, these poems explore the immigrant experience in America, assimilation and anti-Semitism, the legacy of the Holocaust and two world wars, Israel and modern Jewish life. They delve into religious matters: the Bible and ancient Jewish history, theology and mysticism, holidays and ritual. And they movingly illuminate universal concerns: relationships between parents and children, the search for love and community, the pain of death and loss, the quest for the meaning of life.

Telling and Remembering offers the work of exceptional poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Louise Gluck, Anthony Hecht, John Hollander, Maxine Kumin, Stanley Kunitz, Denise Levertov, Philip Levine, Eve Merriam, Howard Nemerov, Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Delmore Schwartz, and Karl Shapiro.