High Holy Days — Poetry Reading List

By popular request, here are the books from which I selected the poetry that I offered on the Yamim Noraim.  All collections are recommended.

-Yehuda Amichai — Patuch, Segor, Patuch — Schocken Press, 1998 (Hebrew); Open, Closed, Open — Harvest, 2000 (translated by Chana Bloch/Chana Kronfeld) (English)

-Yehuda Amichai — Selected Poetry — University of California Press, 1996 (paperback) (translated by Chana Bloch/Stephen Mitchell)

-Leonard Cohen — Stranger Music — Vintage, 1993 — contains selections from his extraordinary work, Book of Mercy (1984).

-The Dream of the Poem — Peter Cole (translator, editor) — Princeton UP, 2007.  A fabulous anthology of Hebrew poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492.  As part of the Jewish Bookfair 2011, Peter will be visiting Austin in November, 2011 to speak about his new book, Sacred Trash — a history of the Cairo Geniza — proudly sponsored by Congregation Agudas Achim.

-Philip Levine — The Mercy — Knopf, 1999 — Levine was just appointed as US Poet Laureate.