Eve Grubin was born and raised in New York City where she attended Manhattan Country School, an independent elementary school founded on the principles of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Chris Iijima was her teacher in the 6th and 8th grades. Eve went to The Fieldston School for high school. She received her BA in English from Smith College, her MA in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She has also studied at The Hebrew University, Midreshet Rachel V’Chaya College of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, and the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, where she was a fellow for two years.
Her book, Morning Prayer, appeared in 2006 from the Sheep Meadow Press. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, LIT, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Republic, Upstreet, and many other magazines and journals, including Conjunctions, where her chapbook-size group of poems was featured and introduced by Fanny Howe. Her essays have appeared in various magazines and anthologies including, The Veil: Women Writers on Its History Lore and Politics (U of CA Press, 2009).
She was the Programs Director at The Poetry Society of America for five years (2001-2006). She founded and directed the Poetry and Mentorship Reading Series at Makor, where she also taught poetry workshops and poetry craft classes. In addition, she taught poetry in the MA program at the City College of New York. She also taught at The New School for many years. She is now working on her second manuscript of poems and other book projects. She currently teaches at New York University in London and at the London School of Jewish Studies. She divides her time between London and New York.
Please visit her web site: http://www.evegrubin.com
In the dream I walk with my teacher across a field.
It is day, the field
a dying brown.
Lifted by sudden wind we stand
in midair, our wool coats hanging
like heavy curtains.
When we drop back down, our boots in the dust,
I ask, “Why did that happen?”
She says, “Because we saw Christ.”
I say, “I didn’t see him,” remembering
the sycamores at the edges.
She says, “It was because of the resurrection.”
“No,” I say. “It was Jerusalem.”
Keep me close to the flaw,
to the cracked soil. Don’t let me
fly up again; keep me living
inside the laws and the lightning, planted
and learning, leaning
into this difficult field.
Jerusalem II
Unmoving on the edge
of Israel, on the edge of Palestine,
everything an edge: his empty
lap, the night, my crying like a child
in his motionless car. I am so hungry.
Everyone is.
No, I am the only one …
All edges touching.
Words beating stone, night. Words
dipping into the eye
of the world.
Jerusalem III
Sometimes the broom is brittle; or it’s a damp
nest, useless.
Let’s praise
even those who, for now, lean
on the hinge
resisting the parts of love that bring
only peace.
Blessed are you who girds us with strength.
Evening: splinters of fret strike these stone roads
wet.
In this rough country, in the rough
morning light
night rain fills the broom.
from Morning Prayer (The Sheep Meadow Press)
Poetry in this post: © Eve Grubin
photo © Marion Ettinger
Published with the permission of Eve Grubin