Poetry has been used throughout the millennia to respond to loss and tragedy. Who hasn’t loved and lost? The poet’s purpose is to transform the depth of that heartbreak into art. Rabbi Pamela Wax will read and invite a discussion about some of her own poems, as well as those written by other poets, about the experience of grief. She will also offer writing prompts to inspire our own poetic inclinations.

Rabbi Pamela Wax’s poems have received honorable mentions in the Paterson Literary Review Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize, and the Oberon Poetry Prize and have appeared in numerous literary journals. Her first volume of poetry, Walking the Labyrinth, written in the aftermath of her brother’s death by suicide, will be published momentarily, and her poetry chapbook Starter  Mothers has  just been accepted for publication, as well. Rabbi Wax’s essays on Judaism, spirituality, and women’s issues have been published broadly, and she is also a nationally-known teacher of Mussar, a Jewish spiritual practice of character development. Rabbi Wax runs a Jewish Spiritual Healing Center, offering spiritual support groups of many kinds.