This seems to be a good week for me and poetry! The editors at Scribblers on the Roof have kindly published one of my Torah poems (the second one to see print this week, go figure) -- this time the poem in question is Instead of Sons (Vayechi).

I originally wrote this poem as part of my ongoing Torah poems series. Parashat Vayechi is the last Torah portion in the book of Genesis; last year we were reading it in early January. (This year we will, too.)

There's a special resonance for me in seeing this poem published this week. When I first drafted this poem, I was pregnant for the first time, which is probably why I gravitated toward writing about Joseph's Egyptian wife and the daughters for whom I imagined she longed. The day after I posted the poem to this blog, I had my miscarriage, which is chronicled in my collection Through. And now, as the poem goes online, I'm preparing for the birth of our son in a few days.

What an awesome year it has been. (I mean that in the most classical sense of the word -- I'm thinking of the Hebrew yir'ah, which means both awe and fear.) It's pretty mindblowing to think that within the last twelve months I have gone from pregnant, to the grief of losing that pregnancy, to carrying another pregnancy almost to term.

Anyway! If you don't know Scribblers on the Roof, you can learn about the site, and I recommend adding them to your aggregator if Jewish literature is your cup of tea. They're a terrific forum for Jewish fiction and poetry, and I'm delighted that they've chosen to publish one of my Torah poems. Thanks, editors.