Midrash: Jewish poetics in a strange land

Until recently, Jewish poetics have largely been seen as parochial, disconnected from both conversations about aesthetics and general cultural trends. Recently, a widespread interest in diasporas and migrations have brought new ways of viewing Jewish poetics, allowing us to examine them as both a contemporary phenomenon, and an ancient written tradition. Midrash is a poetic technique invented more than two thousand years ago to derive text from given text. In this panel, four practitioners of "Jewish poetry" will read from their own work, and the work of other Jewish poets, and comment on the new/old technique of midrash and what it brings to our contemporary strangeness. We will discuss how Jewish history informs today’s poetics, and how the Jewish poetry of today provides essential commentary on the broader culture.