About
Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, musician, ritualist and Torah teacher. The San Francisco Chronicle calls her writing “a poetry page-turner, both sexy and humble"; the New York Times calls her voice “gorgeous." Rabins is the author of Divinity School (2015 APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (finalist for the 2018 Jewish Book Award), and has released three albums with Girls in Trouble, her indie-folk song cycle about women in Torah. She is also the creator and performer of A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, a one-woman chamber-rock opera currently being made into an independent feature film. Rabins lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and their two children. www.aliciajo.com
Featured Work
Divinity School
"The poet wants to know what happened next. After the flood subsides, when the world grew back, in the place of dials and switches, inside the constraints of earthly time where faces crack, flesh sags and fish stink. She understands that conflict is easier than kindness."—from the introduction by C.D. Wright
Divinity School, winner of the prestigious Honickman First Book Award from the American Poetry Review, is a wide-ranging exploration of spirituality, sex, travel, food, holy texts, and coming of age. Poet Alicia Jo Rabins brings a searing eye for surreal beauty in everyday life with a deep knowledge of wisdom literature, and creates a modern manual for living, a fearless investigation of how we learn to live in a human body both prism and flesh.
Other Works
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Fruit Geode
2018
Awards and Recognition
- American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize
- Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency
- Oregon Literary Fellowship
- Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellowship
- Sarah Verdone Award
- Finalist for Jewish Book Award
- Finalist for Oregon Book Award
