Susan Comninos

“Exploring Jewish Poetry” Workshop with Susan Comninos

Gerald Stern. Linda Pastan. Denise Levertov. What do these major American poets have in common?

All significantly draw on Jewish texts, culture, and family experience to explore both being and identity in contemporary America.

In this eight-week course, we’ll read and discuss poems by these masters of verse, as well as write and workshop our own poems using in-class exercises and assignments that draw on  Jewish wellsprings like the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), liturgical poems, folklore, ritual, and family legacy.

The course will be focused on Jewish experience rendered in literature, and everyone is invited to enroll.

Applicants must first submit a writing sample to be considered. Please send your writing sample to arotenberg@cgoh.org.

The class will meet on Monday evenings from 6:30-8 p.m., beginning Nov. 22, at Congregation Gates ofHeaven, 852 Ashmore Ave. in Schenectady. The class is offered both live and hybrid. All in-person individuals are required to wear masks and be vaccinated.

The cost of the 8-week program is $150. For more information, call Arnie at 518-374-8173, or email arotenbeg@cgoh.org.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

Susan Comninos is a widely published poet and author of the forthcoming book, “Out of Nowhere: poems” (Stephen F. Austin State Univ. Press/Texas A&M, spring 2022).

Her individual poems have recently appeared in the Harvard Review Online, Rattle, The Common, Prairie Schooner and North American Review.

She’s taught writing at Siena College, The College of St. Rose, and SUNY Albany, among others, and is a longtime participant in CGOH events and classes. She lives in Guilderland.