Escape of Light

In this intimate collection of poems, Deborah Kahan Kolb invites the reader to join her ongoing journey of becoming, of reimagining a life in the years after leaving the insular Hasidic community of her childhood. The author's poems of birth and birthing, of the personal and political reinvention of the self, offer a glimpse of the ways one can - indeed must - transform and emerge constantly new, to allow trapped light to escape. At times reflecting on the deeply personal relationships of marriage and motherhood, at times invoking the collective memory of Jewish history, Escape of Light places the reader at the epicenter of one woman's evolving journey of self-discovery.
This poetry collection is a winner of the Bronx Council on the Arts BRIO Award, and the poems "After Auschwitz" and "Re(vision)" have been adapted for the award-winning short film Write Me.