Unlocking the gates of Genesis through poetry

When Robert Alter’s Hebrew Bible translation was published in 2018, I quickly became consumed by his poetic renderings of scripture. Before I knew it, I was writing persona poems of biblical prophetesses like Miriam, Abigail, and Huldah. Thus, when I learned about Jessica Jacobs’s new poetry collection, which rescues biblical narratives from dogmatism and some of their women from obscurity, I was all in.

Jacobs, the founder of Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry, has written two previously acclaimed collections: Pelvis with Distance, a collection of biographical verses on Georgia O’Keeffe, and Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going, a memoir in verse about the poet’s coming of age as a queer woman and marriage to her wife.

Like Serah (who, according to Jewish tradition, was tasked with telling Jacob that Joseph was alive because his brothers had sold him into slavery), Jacobs speaks with a lyrical and honest voice about the heart-wrenching stories and complex characters of Genesis, drawing parallels to her own life. Also through Serah, whose “songs / were her progeny” and whom the poet calls “Matriarch of my line,” Jacobs finds a place for herself within the Jewish faith.