Sunday Cafe: Three Poets & the Many Shades of Jewish Experience

Join local authors Janet Bowdan, Susan Comninos, and Judith Chalmer for a reading of poems pegged to The Color Wheel anthology, along with poems from their own books that emphasize Jewish themes and how Jewish identity informs our work. Discussion will follow the short readings. 

Bio: Janet Bowdan's poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Sequestrum, Lit Shark, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Making Progress (Finishing Line Press), was published in 2018. Recently retired after 30 years of teaching at Western New England University, she is the editor of Common Ground Review and lives in Northampton with her husband and their son.

Bio: Susan Comninos, the poetry editor of Judith magazine, is author of Out of Nowhere (SFA Press/Texas A&M, 2022). Her individual poems have appeared in the Harvard Review Online, Rattle, The Common, Prairie Schooner and North American Review, among others. She lives in Albany, NY. 

Bio: Judith Chalmer

Judith Chalmer is a Vermont-based Jewish poet whose work focuses on the outdoors and relationships. She identifies as Jewish, queer, and disabled. She is a writer, educator, performer, and Holocaust educator. Her work includes poetry, Japanese-to-English co-translations, oral history, and creative writing. She has been deeply involved in Jewish and interracial community work and has been an active member and adult education leader at Vermont synagogues. In 2018, she received the Vermont Arts Council’s Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service in the Arts.