Happy New Year

Approaching another year, after a lifetime’s worth of instruction by Kim and William, Ingrid, Humphrey, Cary, Fred and Ginger and the Warner Brothers I realized that dances into golden sunsets are not regularly happening. My daily life runs more along the lines of  confrontations with machines grinding away in order to outsmart me and other humans and surely take over.  It could happen in 2015. According to gleeful nerd experts, computers will write symphonies greater than Mozart’s, paint masterpieces that surpass Monet’s, contol and or hack into every system we’ve got, defensive, economic, strategic, etc. Then the superhuman contraptions will go on to destroy the electric grid, whatever the hell that is. The only way I sustain a small  measure of hope is to think perhaps they can’t do everything we can. The way I figure it, they will not likely commit petty larceny or string along some other machine just for carnal pleasure.

Best Poetry Anthology

I am thrilled to report that The Brentwood Anthology was just named "Best Poetry Anthology" for the month of November by the Washington Review of Books. Read more about it here. Buy The Brentwood Anthology here. 

A Poem for King David

Hello Poetry Lovers,

As I am certain you already know, our ancestor King David was, among many other things, a psalmist, a poet.  The psalms have guided Jews and Christians alike, across the centuries. The wisdom is as palpalable today as it was thousands of years ago. As I consider the terrible rising tide a Anti-Zionism, which is another expression of the curse of Anti-Semitism, as well as the growing marginalization and isolation of Israel, I cannot but note how King David addressed a situation closely akin to what we face today.  For your consideration, I offer Psalm 129:

Psalm 129

A SONG OF ASCENTS

1 “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,”
    let Israel say;

2 “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth,
    but they have not gained the victory over me.

3 Plowmen have plowed my back
    and made their furrows long.

4 But the Lord is righteous;
    he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”

5 May all who hate Zion
    be turned back in shame.

6 May they be like grass on the roof,
    which withers before it can grow;

7 a reaper cannot fill his hands with it,
    nor one who gathers fill his arms.

8 May those who pass by not say to them,
    “The blessing of the Lord be on you;
    we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

We have faced hate and discrimination from time immemorial. And we have survived.

Thank you for clicking in.  xo Judy

Read more: The Jewish Chronicle - entry A POEM FROM KING DAVID