Woke up to this very sweet review in @publisherswkly . Grateful to my wonderful press @univnebpress , and very grateful for generous readers who handle this collection with so much care. 💛💛💛
I’ve been writing a book that asks what it means to nurture and create amidst political turmoil and climate crisis. I’m humbled and so so grateful for the gift of (the astonishing!!) Ilya Kaminsky selecting it for the Helena Whitehill Book Award. This is a dark and deranged time. It’s been surreal to receive this sweet news amidst all the apocalyptic news. I’m wrecked. This book is about being wrecked. And about all the ways we mother the world and are mothered by it.
The world of this book includes: the archetypal childless cat ladies™️ of Judaism; matriarchs of Biblical, literary, and familial origins; the first crown of sonnets I’ve ever completed; queer gender-abundant love and partnership; weird names for G-d; laments for the earth; grappling and wrestling with the beauty and violence of my religious tradition; song; ghosts; grief; Noah’s ark; the ocean; and many interpretations of “be fruitful and multiply.”
I’m so grateful this book is finding a home with @tupelopress 🙌
At the risk of cliché, this poem by Brecht has surfaced again and again— “In the dark times/ Will there also be singing?/ Yes, there will also be singing./ About the dark times.”
I’m here singing, with all of you. ❤️
Good morning, irresistible singing resisters ❤️🔥 We are still so filled up from weaving all of our voices together and the energy and spirit we created. THANK YOU to the 75 people who showed up and made this powerful night of song possible.
Together we also raised a total of $1,664.36 for @vamos_juntos_ !! These funds will go towards Juntos’ organizing work to support families and communities who have been impacted by ICE raid, as well as continued efforts to organize for immigrant justice. If you didn’t get to give last night and still want to contribute, you can donate at GoFundMe.com/srphilly.
A huge thanks to our song leaders for bringing stories, lineages & soul medicine to the space. @reverendrhetta@alhalpal@sterlingduns@samantharise@chanarothman_music@dancingmobot@krodmannn@rachel.chang.395
Thank you to @noicephilly , @koltzedek & our volunteers for collaborating on this.
And to all of you for being a part of this singing movement. Until we sing again, in practice and in the streets, soon. 💕
🎼 They Tried to Bury Us by stacy.craig.37
We know that our movements are more powerful and irresistible when we sing together. Join us on Tuesday, May 12th from 7-8:30pm at @koltzedek (5300 Whitby Ave) for an evening of Singing Resistance, in partnership with @noicephilly . We will learn & practice anti-ICE/migrant justice/movement liberation songs that we can sing in the streets, and fill our own cups to continue to fight authoritarianism and build the world we need. This gathering may be filmed so other groups can learn these songs.
Songleaders & instrumentalists for the night include: @reverendrhetta , @alhalpal , @dancingmobot , @samantharise , @sterlingduns , @chanarothman_music , @singingresistancephilly , and @krodmannn
Sign up at: /form/singingresistance
Do yourself a favor and listen to Mónica Gomery’s stunning poem “Occupational Hazards,” the winning poem for the 2022 Sappho Prize, selected by Jos Charles.
Read more of her work at and follow her on Instagram @dancingmobot .
Mónica Gomery is a poet and rabbi living on unceded Lenni Lenape land in Philadelphia. Her work explores queerness, diaspora, ancestry, theology, and cultivating courageous hearts. Her second book, Might Kindred, won the 2021 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize in Poetry, and is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press in November 2022. She is also the author of Here is the Night and the Night on the Road (Cooper Dillon Books, 2018), and the chapbook Of Darkness and Tumbling (YesYes Books, 2017). She has been a nominee for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net, and her poems appear, or are forthcoming, most recently in The Iowa Review, Adroit Journal, Third Coast, Muzzle Magazine, and Poet Lore.
Action means something different for each of us right now. I am so grateful to learn from the myriad ways people are showing up to this moment, for the many expressions of disobedience and care.
Recently, the night before taking action with a beloved circle of clergy colleagues, I wrote a prayer-spell-incantation to ready myself. Deep thanks to @iamjonsands for creating the space for me to write it, and to @poetrynw for giving it a home.
I’m sharing it here for anyone who is also trying to generate courage in these days— to protect neighbors and friends, to stand in solidarity with all who are targeted by this violence. As @lizziehorne taught this past weekend at our congregational meeting, in the name of Marcia Howard, Minneapolis teacher and leader: “We must be gentle with each other so that we can be dangerous together.” Amen. Let’s.
Earlier this month, I wrote a sermon for the @koltzedek community about the US’s invasion of Venezuela, and the theology of divine sovereignty as we resist authoritarianism. The generous folks at @lilithmagazine gave me a chance to share an excerpt on their blog (full article in my linktree). It feels like a lifetime ago that this invasion happened, but here we still are, together, shouting No Kings, No Empires, End State Violence in all its forms, from every possible rooftop and street corner and house of worship. Our spiritual and religious traditions are with us. Let’s keep making each other brave.
The best little big night in BK is back on January 14th! Bring a poem for the short open mic, then a new poem from each of your curators. And then: Do you like genuine, authentic discovery told through the threading of world-class imagery? Get ready for Mónica Gomery.
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Mónica Gomery is a rabbi and writer. Her third collection of poems, Mother of Mother of, was selected by Ilya Kaminsky for the Helena Whitehill Book Award and is forthcoming from Tupelo Press.
Her other books include Might Kindred, winner of the Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize in Poetry (University of Nebraska Press, 2022), Here is the Night and the Night on the Road (Cooper Dillon Books, 2018), and the chapbook Of Darkness and Tumbling (YesYes Books, 2017).
Mónica’s poems have been awarded the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, the Sappho Prize for Women Poets and the Minola Review Poetry Contest. She is a Tin House Workshop alum, has received residencies and fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and Sundress Academy for the Arts, and has been featured on The Slowdown podcast. Recent poems appear in The Kenyon Review, Poetry Northwest, The Massachusetts Review, and American Poetry Review, among other journals.
She currently serves as Rabbi and Music Director at Kol Tzedek Synagogue, and taught on the faculty of SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva from 2015-2024. Mónica is a co-founder of Let My People Sing! With the writer Moriel Rothman-Zecher she hosts the 5-3-5 poetry salon in Philadelphia. She is grateful to work with incredible teams of people on these projects committed to intergenerational healing and cultural, political, and spiritual transformation.
New to our column Otiyot: excerpts from YESHIVA, a poetry cycle by Mónica Gomery (@dancingmobot ).
“At / night I ride the train home to / Queens, sit in a Metro car / writing odes to the authors of / dictionaries. It was as silent as / creation at Sinai before the / Torah was revealed. Silent on / the train jostling me away / from hum of books, room / flung with alphabet. Take words / with you when you return, the / prophet says. Silent, gorgeous, / deadly. Letters curl a crypt / against the helix of my ear.”
Read the full excerpts at the link in our bio.
About the author:
Mónica Gomery is a poet and rabbi. Her third collection of poems was selected by Ilya Kaminsky for the Helena Whitehill Book Award and is forthcoming from Tupelo Press. She is the author of Might Kindred, winner of the Prairie Schooner/Raz-Shumaker Book Prize (University of Nebraska Press, 2022), and Here Is the Night and the Night on the Road (Cooper Dillon Books, 2018). Her work has been awarded the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, and the Sappho Prize for Women Poets. New poems appear in American Poetry Review, Shenandoah, Gashmius, and Kenyon Review. She serves on the clergy team of Kol Tzedek synagogue, is an active member of Rabbis for Ceasefire, and is shakily/joyfully at work on her first novel.
