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Herb Levy began writing poetry in high school inspired, in part, by the poetry then being read at coffeehouses. His undergraduate degree is in English. That exposed him to some of the greatest poets writing in the English language. Some of the poetry he wrote in college was an exercise in learning the value of the many forms of poetry. He returned to free verse, as it is the clearest expression of his voice. Roughly thirty years ago, his poetry began to become an expression of his Jewish faith. This volume draws from some of the best of his work, but is largely composed of poems written in the last year. During that year, he wrote a poem for each of the parshas, the weekly portion of the Torah. The lens of that work is how the parsha offers an opportunity to wrestle with unhealed places and find healing. The spiritual intention of this collection is to use the Torah as a template in our healing. The power of the stories of Torah is that the stories are told about imperfect people. Each poem is an opportunity to revisit our hurts and to wrestle with those hurts lovingly to take the next step in healing them. COPY (read@coffeehouses.his)
About the author
Herb Levy is a poet and a lay leader in his congregation. He directed local and national nonprofit organizations for more than 32 years. His work was largely in the area of affordable housing, but also included directing a faith community and a nonprofit presenter of folk and acoustic music. The thread behind this work was to heal the world.
