Poets on the Psalms

by Lynn Domina (Editor)

Overview

Reverential, celebratory, antagonistic, and even erotic, this remarkable collection of essays interprets the Psalms as a collection of poetry. Written by 14 acclaimed poets, the essays approach the Psalms from a personal, often autobiographical perspective, demonstrating how relevant they remain for today’s readers. Alicia Ostriker examines the Psalms’ glory and their terror in a moving essay that revels in their moods of joy while acknowledging the brutality they invoke, linking their violence to events such as 9/11, the Palestinian uprisings, and the Rwandan massacres. Weaving autobiographical anecdotes with scholarly introspection, Enid Dame provides a Jewish explanation of Psalm 22, while editor Lynn Domina contemplates the pastoral life as she connects the everyday with phrases from the Psalms. From a former nun to a self-described left-wing Jew, from a Midrashic scholar to a Texas rancher, the contributors mirror the wide swath of humanity interested in, and affected by, the Psalms. Contributors include Robert A. Ayres, David Citino, Enid Dame, Madeline DeFrees, Lynn Domina, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Angie Estes, Diane Glancy, Janet McCann, Alicia Ostriker, Carl Phillips, Pattiann Rogers, Catherine Sasanov, and Daniel Tobin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595340481
Publisher:	Trinity University Press
Publication date:	03/28/2008
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	743,794
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lynn Domina is the author of a collection of poetry, Corporal Works, as well as books on Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony. Her more recent poetry appears or is forthcoming in the Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, Tiferet: A Journal of Spirituality and Literature, and Christianity and Literature, and she will soon be the featured poet at Heliotrope magazine’s website (heliopoems.com). She lives in the western Catskill region of New York.

Interviews

Literary perspectives on the the Psalms, the most popular book in the Bible

Editorial Reviews

Editor Lynn Domina brings together fourteen modern-day poets providing remarkable reverential, celebratory, antagonistic, and even erotic interpretations of the Psalms, approaching them from a personal, often autobiographical perspective, demonstrating how relevant they remain for today’s readers.”— Christian Newswire

From the Publisher

Poet and teacher Domina has edited a lovely and varied collection of essays written by poets about the Psalms. Poets are naturally and perhaps inevitably drawn to the Book of Psalms, the Bible's long collection of poems of praise, victory, wonder, and despair, and the encounter is almost always fruitful-witness The Poets' Book of Psalms(1999) and Chapters into Verse(1993). Carl Philips and Alicia Ostriker are perhaps the best-known poets as poets here, but the centerpiece of the book may be three very different responses to the imperishable 23rd Psalm by Catherine Sasanov, David Citino, and Angie Estes. This book should delight open-minded seekers and readers of poetry alike. Highly recommended.

—Graham Christian

Library Journal