A Speaker Is a Wilderness - by Anna Goodman Herrick (Paperback)

About the Book

"This poetry addresses the interconnection of individual, communal, and global trauma, towards collective liberation. In Hebrew, the words for wilderness, speaker, and speaks are spelled the same and share the same root letters. Goodman Herrick's title, from a poem in the collection, references the Torah's BaMidbar (in the wilderness or desert) and her ancestor's ritual practice of elevating etymology, roots, and folk word associations as spiritual meditation. The author returns to her roots and original wholeness through reconnecting language: "Wilderness speaks/ A speaker is a wilderness." Goodman Herrick survived sexual assault in her teens by a classmate, and left home at 14. The grandchild of an Auschwitz survivor, she's been a New York City club kid, MTV writer-producer, a peacemaker around the world, nun at a Vedanta convent, and student of Chassidic rabbis. This expansiveness lives in her poems. The book invites readers to reconsider prayer and blessing as an ongoing, fluid, language, holding space for the reverent and irreverent as prophetic"--

Book Synopsis

Weaves Jewish sacred texts, mysticism, human rights, and a modern voice of radical love, taking readers on a path of healing from brokenness to wholeness.

This poetry addresses the interconnection of individual, communal, and global trauma, towards collective liberation. In Hebrew, the words for wilderness, speaker, and speaks are spelled the same and share the same root letters. Goodman Herrick's title, from a poem in the collection, references the Torah's BaMidbar (in the wilderness or desert) and her ancestor's ritual practice of elevating etymology, roots, and folk word associations as spiritual meditation. The author returns to her roots and original wholeness through reconnecting language: "Wilderness speaks/ A speaker is a wilderness."

Goodman Herrick survived sexual assault in her teens by a classmate, and left home at 14. The grandchild of an Auschwitz survivor, she's been a New York City club kid, MTV writer-producer, a peacemaker around the world, nun at a Vedanta convent, and student of Chassidic rabbis. This expansiveness lives in her poems. The book invites readers to reconsider prayer and blessing as an ongoing, fluid, language, holding space for the reverent and irreverent as prophetic.

Review Quotes

"Anna Goodman Herrick revels in beauty and sacredness, a testament to defiantly vowing to not live in fear. She writes of a new beginning, informed by tragedy but refusing to be defined by it: 'We opened / the windows of ourselves, sent the night out searching / for our collective liberation like a raven / for the end of the flood.'" -Kara Lewis, Write Poetry

"Listening to Anna Goodman Herrick read a poem made the hair on my arm stand up. I wonder if we could measure the effects of good poetry on electrodermal activity." --Timothy Green, Editor, Rattle Magazine

"Anna Goodman Herrick is a rising star, a poet, and a bard well beyond her years in wisdom and vision. Her book A Speaker Is a Wilderness brings tears of recognition and awe to my eyes every time I open it." --Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone, author of Wounds into Wisdom

About the Author

Anna Goodman Herrick works at the intersection of spirituality, sacred words, and human rights. She is a writer, poet, filmmaker, and interdisciplinary artist. Anna has performed her poetry across the U.S., including at the Emily Dickinson Museum's Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series, presenting "contemporary creativity that echoes Dickinson's own revolutionary poetic voice." She has performed her poetry at the El Paso border for Artist Uprising with V (formerly Eve Ensler), Bloomsday on Broadway and Radio Bloomsday, and at the Theopoetics Conference. Her recent poetry is included in Rattle, The Ekphrastic Review, Hevria Magazine, and Ritualwell. She has created work for television and branded content for Sony, ABC Family, Oprah Winfrey Network, and MTV and shared her work at the Library of Congress, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and in film, stage, museums and galleries nationwide. For more information visit: annagoodmanherrick.com and Instagram @annagoodmanherrick.