Buy My Poetry Book, 20% Off

Ben Yehuda Press is having a Jewish Book Month sale

Hi all! I’ve mentioned before that my poetry collection, Not Akhmatova, was published this year at Ben Yehuda Press.

I wanted to let you all know that the book is 20% off for Jewish Book Month…ending I think next week before the holiday. So if you want a good gift for a poetry loving friend, or for yourself, this is a good moment! Digital price is $5.56, print is $12.76. The link is here.

Here’s a short description:

“Not Akhmatova” by Noah Berlatsky navigates the intricate dance between homage and reinvention, drawing inspiration from the works of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. A book of quasi translations, appropriations, and alienations, it is also an authentic and unique examination of rootlessness and the need to belong. Berlatsky’s argumentative and proud poems explore his own relationship with Russia as well as the concept of Jewish diaspora identity.

And! Here’s one of my favorite poems from the collection:

Lot’s Wife

The righteous man followed God’s messenger,
huge and terrible, like a black mountain.
His great back to Lot’s wife was sorrow and fear.
She longed to stop and see just once again

the white spires of her home, the place
in the square where she sang to her children.
The windows of the house where in joy and pain
she gave birth to her children.

And so she turned back, for one last sight.
Her eyes like those windows were empty.
Her body was a pillar of salt, bleached white.
Her feet were rooted in place, like a memory.

We aren’t supposed to mourn her.
She’s a fool, and so many others burned.
They say do not look towards her
who defied God, and turned.

Again, the book is 20% off at Ben Yehuda Press. Click on through!