Open My Lips is a new collection of Jewish liturgical poetry by Rachel Barenblat, published (April 2016) by Ben Yehuda Press!
This volume of contemporary liturgical poetry is both a poetry collection and an aid to devotional prayer. This collection dips into the deep well of Jewish tradition and brings forth renewed and renewing adaptations of, and riffs on, classical Jewish liturgy. Here are poems for weekday and Shabbat, festival seasons (including the Days of Awe and Passover), and psalms of grief and praise. Intended for those who seek a clear, readable, heartfelt point of access into Jewish tradition or into prayer in general.
For those who seek a prayer practice in English but don't know where to start, this volume offers several starting points (poems for weekday and Sabbath, psalms of grief and of praise.) These poems could be used to augment an existing prayer practice, Jewish or otherwise -- either on a solitary basis or for congregational use. For the reader of poetry unfamiliar with liturgical text, they can serve as an introduction to prayer in general, and Jewish prayer in particular. And for the pray-er unfamiliar with contemporary poetry, these poems can open the door in the other direction.
The acknowledgements, introduction, and "about the author" page can be found in the top navbar; the poems in the collection, and the glossary which follows them, can be found via the category tags on the right-hand sidebar.
If you'd like to buy a copy for yourself, your best friend, your rabbi, your synagogue library, your roshi, or whomever else you think might dig this work, you can do so for a mere $14.95: Open My Lips at the Ben Yehuda Press website, Open My Lips at Amazon. Please support independent publishing and buy a copy if you can.