In her talk, Irena Klepfisz will describe some of the issues she faced when she began trying to incorporate Yiddish into her English poetry and prose. What seemed easy enough (just put it in! use it!) turned out to be more difficult and raised questions about appropriateness, intelligibility, and, perhaps most importantly, purpose. Klepfisz will illustrate her literary process and evolution through readings of her own work and the writings of other Yiddish women writers.

Irena Klepfisz is a poet, essayist, translator, editor, and teacher. She is serving as Jewish Studies’ 2019 Sondra and Howard Bender Visiting Scholar and will be in residence at CU Boulder February 20 - 21, 2019. She has taught at Barnard College, in the college program at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a women's maximum-security prison, and elsewhere. Among her many other literary accomplishments, she was a founder and co-editor of the award-winning Conditions magazine, the Yiddish editor of the Jewish feminist Bridges, a major contributor to Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, and co-editor of The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology.

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