Since late December, I’ve been working on a book-length sonnet sequence—titled A Bit of Martyred Clay—inspired by the memoirs of Glikl of Hameln, the earliest known Yiddish-language book written by a woman. Glikl was a 17th century Jew who witnessed seemingly everything: the consequences of pogroms in Eastern Europe, Bubonic Plague, the expulsion of Jews from various cities. She had 14 children. She was married twice. She survived a catastrophic crowd crush. She was a successful businessman woman at a time when Jews had very little economic freedom and extremely limited choices of what kind of employment they were permitted to pursue. She was resilient. She was faithful.

So, I’ve been writing lots and lots of sonnets. I’ve also been researching the sumptuary laws of the Jews of Hamburg, the seed pearl trade in Danzig/Gdansk, and the process of making gold and silver lace.

And just this week, a group of seven sonnets (along with an essay about the process of writing these poems) was published in the Yiddish scholarly journal, In geveb. I’m excited not only to have these poems appear in a scholarly publication but also to know that there may be a future for this strange, idiosyncratic project as a whole. You can read the essay and poems by visiting In geveb here.