Poet, Author, Teacher, Natural Dreamworker
Rodger Natural-Dreamwork-and-the-Poetic-Imagination-Kenyon-Review This essay lays out the essential focus of Natural Dreamwork, the power of dream images to revive feeling. It discusses several dream sessions and also closely references the poetry of William Wordsworth. Click here to download the PDF. Click here to download the PDF.
Upcoming speaking events for Seeing into the Life of Things on Zoom, and in person in Asheville NC and New York City.
It was lovely as always to talk with Susan Larson, New Orleans great advocate for books and authors. In this excerpt we talk about the core of Seeing into the Life of Things. You can listen to the complete show by going to this link: THE READING LIFE | Rodger Kamenetz
A main difference between dreams and poetry is that seeing dream images is involuntary and effortless, while seeing images in words—reading with imagination—requires intention and participation. You can’t speed read poetry. The same is true of memory. I must concentrate to bring images to life. The life that comes to mind this morning is a … Read more
Alice Notley (November 8, 1945 – May 19, 2025). I met Alice Notley in the late 60’s when I was an undergraduyate and later while living in Blatimore we did an iterview. In recent years whenever I was in Paris I always looked up Alice and we had lunch together and hung out. our conversations … Read more
Gabriel Meyer Halevy, peace activist, nomad, composer, musician, and now author, interviews me on his monthly substack, ONCE A MOONTH where we talk about dreams, kabbalah and more. To listen and read the transcript go here
Asterism Losing infinity I saved up for immediacy. Every hour I put a penny in to see the cornflower open its eye or to hear the thunder mutter proto- names. I borrowed the pennies from the eyelids of dead sailors and paid back in summer stars I could actually name Deneb Altair Vega. Great triangles … Read more
GILGUL 2 1992 In 1992 Time Being Books re-issued an expanded edition, The Missing Jew: New and Selected Poems. I took lines from the old poems and using midrash made new poems from the old. The book now was 101 pages long. About this edition, the great novelist Louise Erdrich was kind enough to write: … Read more
GILGUL 3: 2022 In the years since I continued to write on Jewish themes, including The Lowercase Jew which Northwestern put out in 2003. I always felt I wanted to expand THE MISSING JEW project and now in its current incarnation comes The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022 which encompasses 46 years of work. At 230 … Read more