MARCH 1, 2002	| current issue | back issues | subscribe |

At 'Pisk,' Spoken Word Meets People of the Book

By MATTHEW GILGOFF

In a dark, smoky lounge on East 13th Street in Manhattan, Adam Mansbach reads his poem about a souvenir stand at Auschwitz, while his tight jazz combo plays in the background. Later Dan Sieradski recites "The Book of Das," a poem about the time he spent studying with an eastern mystic.

It's not unusual fare for a poetry slam, although some among the 40 young and racially diverse audience-members might have been taken aback that it was taking place under the auspices of a Jewish community center.

"Pisk: A Slam" is a monthly poetry and spoken-word showcase sponsored by the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. Taking its name from a Yiddish word for "big mouth," the event is billed as "a new Jewish cultural salon where published and emerging poets, writers and journalists meet to perform new and published works."

Pearl Gluck, the former literary director of the JCC who now runs its film department, started Pisk in the summer of 1999. "I wanted to bring poetry to the people and provide a space for voices that don't often get published," she said. She ran the event in the traditional "poetry slam" style that was gaining fame in places like the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Mr. Sieradski, 22, has been participating in Pisk for more than three years. "Pisk is a wonderful opportunity for Jewish literati to hobnob with one another," he said. "A chance for young, bright Jewish writers to lounge out and share their work with their contemporaries. It also provides an audience for individuals to share their works-in-progress and get worthwhile feedback." What's more, he said, it's "a good reason to go drinking on a Wednesday night."

Mr. Sieradski, who has performed in venues throughout New York and New Jersey, says Pisk also provides participants with an audience familiar with Judaism. "The benefit of reading to that crowd is that any references I make to Jewish culture will not fall on deaf ears," he said. "People will be more likely to understand a Judaic concept when I pitch it, instead of me having to explain myself after the fact to those who don't get it."

Other literary readings in New York, both within the JCC and without, feature work by Jewish authors. But Paul Zakrzewski, the JCC's literary director and the current director of Pisk, said his event is unique in its selection of artists. While many organizers seek poets with the greatest notoriety, Mr. Zakrzewski said he seeks to present both renowned and undiscovered writers together.

His selections, he said, "may not be in the public eye, but are very bright and talented writers who deserve a wider audience. There are a lot of capable writers who aren't in the New Yorker [magazine], but are worth listening to."

This month's Pisk event will take place March 20 and will feature the editor of and contributors from the new feminist anthology "Yentl's Revenge."

Mr. Zakrzewski said that Pisk is part of the longstanding tradition of Jewish involvement in poetry. "I feel that at every historical phase, the Jews have had their lyrical witnesses," he said, citing the Song of Songs, medieval midrashic poets and Yiddish sweatshop poets.

"What's interesting, though, is that in this century, that's shifted to some degree. The poets haven't necessarily just been writing about religious experiences or from that perspective. You've had people like Allen Ginsberg who are acquainted with Jewish traditions and are using them to talk about even more universal experiences. So you have a poem like "Kaddish," that's about his mother, that's using the Jewish idea of Kaddish, but it's actually lamenting his mother's death and her very difficult circumstances."

Mr. Zakrzewski said there's something about Jewish culture and religion that lends itself to poetic expression. "There's an emphasis on text and words. Poets are people that lovingly parse words or who try and find what T.S. Eliot called the 'objective correlative,' the perfect set of images and words to resurrect a certain experience. I think there's a huge precedent for that. We're a very word-, text-bound people, and that kind of attention to language is just central to Judaism.

Mr. Gilgoff is a writer living in New York City.