The Missing Jew with Rodger Kamenetz
It’s often been said that poetry and prayer are intimately related to each other, that they are, indeed, analogous. Both are forms of consecrated speech, language intensified, shaped, and offered up. The disciplines of mind and heart needed to progress in these two forms of expression are also analogous: both require a deeper appreciation of the relationship between sound and silence, between statement and mystery. And yet they are not the same. No one understands the resonance between poetry and prayer better than Rodger Kamenetz, who has not only written outstanding poetry but has also penned some of the most compelling explorations of Jewish and Buddhist spirituality in our time. Just as he refuses to equate poetry and prayer, he refrains from syncretism, the collapsing of one religious tradition into another. Rather, he is attuned to the resonances set up when two traditions are placed in proximity to one another. What he hears he then translates into luminous poetry and prose so that we can hear too. Join us for a CSP conversation with Rodger Kamenetz about his newest book of poetry - The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022
Sponsor: Community Scholar Program (CSP)