Where Pleasure and Pain Meet: Jewish and Arab Poems of Co-Existence

Unlike territories and borders that divide people, poetry may offer us a place to meet. At the very least, a strong poem in and of itself may be a place where pleasure and pain meet and even co-exist. We'll see if that's the case by looking at sections of Yehuda Amichai's poem "Jerusalem, 1967", Jacquelyn Osherow's poem "Hearing News from the Temple Mount in Salt Lake City," Taha Muhammad Ali's poem "Twigs," and my poem "Enemies of Israel, Enemies of the Jews." You don't need to be a fan of poetry to experience the power of the poems we'll explore together.