Shekhinah Speaks

Author: Joy Ladin

Publisher: selva oscura press (2022)

"In this new collection, Joy Ladin wondrously records the reports of the Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of G-d, an extremely important figure in Judaism. Each poem in Shekhinah Speaks swirls and surges with differing velocities, alternately ferocious and tender flowing as a timeless continuous present. In Ladin's work, the Shekhinah has much to say about our current conditions and challenges. The poetry is earthly, ethereal, and full of soul. Very few writers in any form defeat the distinction between subject and predicate so thoroughly as Joy Ladin. This is an enormously significant contribution to poetry, and theology, an extension of Ladin's breathtaking volume Psalms. The author provides a great gift, channeling her attunement to the Shekhinah—a figure similar in importance, and much represented, yet silent like Mary in Christianity. Silent no more, the Shekhinah now speaks in the fundamental and necessary language of true universal love with the passions of the Prophets."

-Gregg Bordowitz