Eve Grubin's "Morning Prayer" Word from: Jake

Eve Grubin's Morning Prayer came out a few months ago, in the middle of the subway strike; crisis notwithstanding, I was completely transported. Alright, this may not be the greatest pun ever, but, it is absolutely true that Eve's book blew me away. It took me over a month to read this thin debut collection - the work was too powerful to digest in large dozes. Basically, this is what we, Mima'amakim folk, term as the "Artistic Exploration of the Jewish Religious Experience" - for the first time, written on the really professional level. Poetry is top-notch, and rather than even trying to get into the detailed critique, I'll quote one of the back-cover blurbs, given by my favorite contemporary poet, Yusef Komunyakaa:

Eve Grubin has found "her own wildness" in Morning Prayer, her first book of poetry, and she has also teased a sober knowingness out of our twenty-first century wilderness. Without the slightest grandstanding, this wonderful young poet's old soul is hard at work, sure-eyed and determined to render a lyrical clarity that surprises and penetrates.

From my end, I'll offer one quick comment. Much of the Jewish religion-themed art (poetry, music, theater) of the past decade has been neo-chassidic - ecstatic, mysticism-wrought, rule-transcending, and sometimes, decadent in the shock effects of its conflicts. Eve's work, however, is much more akin to the "misnaged" approach: even her explosive leaps of religious passion are somehow paced, moderated; everywhere, there's the ambiance of the humble intellectual surrender to the laws. She's not interested in cheap shots of the shock-effect: this work is about the tremendous craft and endless arguments with the self, an internal beit midrash.

Speaking of the beit midrash, Eve is a fellow at Drisha this year. At the same time, she teaches creative writing at the New School and serves as the program director at the Poetry Society of America.

Some of her work is available online: see the Drunken Boat, UES, Virginia Quarterly Review, and LPZ.