ELIXIR of Voice: Four Jewish Poets Speak their truth
Wednesday, April 9, 7:00 pm
Held at Maltz Museum
$10 General Admission, $5 Members
Join poetry troupe, ELIXIR OF VOICE: Four Jewish Poets Speak Their Truth for an opportunity to gather in the power and beauty of poetry and the vitality of Jewish life. Poets Charlene Fix, Rikki Santer, David Swerdlow, and Philip Terman will share works reflecting individually on the current moment.
Charlene Fix’s poetry collections are Jewgirl, Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat, Frankenstein’s Flowers, and Flowering Bruno: a Dography. Her prose homage/film criticism is Harpo Marx as Trickster. Charlene has published poems in Poetry, Literary Imagination, The New Ohio Review, Jewish Literary Journal, Poetica, and other magazines. She was a Featured Poet on the Yetzirah website and 30 Days of Reading and Writing: Cuyahoga County Libraries, has won grants from The Ohio and Greater Columbus Arts Councils as well as Louis Hammer Memorial Award and the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America, and has been a featured writer at The Thurber House, The Ohioana Book Fair, The Columbus Metropolitan Library Spring reading series, and the Marx Fest’s Harpo panel in Brooklyn. Her first book was a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. Emeritus Professor of English at Columbus College of Art and Design, Charlene co-coordinated Hospital Poets at the Ohio State University Medical Center and works for peace and social justice.
Rikki Santer’s poetry has been published widely and has received many honors including several Pushcart and Ohioana Book award nominations, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in 2023 she was named Ohio Poet of the Year. Currently, she is a member of the teaching artist roster of the Ohio Arts Council. Her collection, Resurrection Letter, was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and her most recent book, Shepherd’s Hour, won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books.
David Swerdlow is the author of three collections of poetry, including Nightstand. His work has appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. The recipient of two grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, David served as a Fulbright Professor of American Literature in Peru, as a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and as visiting faculty on two Semester at Sea voyages. For his poetry with a Jewish theme, Swerdlow received the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award. He teaches literature and creative writing at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.
Philip Terman’s recent books include The Whole Mishpocha: New and Selected Jewish Poems, and My Blossoming Everything. His poems and essays appear in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry Magazine, The Kenyon Review, The Forward, Tikkun Magazine, Poetry International, The Sun, and The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Poetry. Philip received the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for Poems on the Jewish Experience. He is a co-curator of the Jewish Poetry Reading Series, sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Buffalo.
