Multi-Access Tish: Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, a poetry Tish by David Katz

Poet David Katz will lead us as we take a deep dive, and maybe a fresh look, at Allen Ginsberg’s “Kaddish,” his 1957 landmark poem. Known best for his Buddhism, his leadership of the Beat Movement, and his leftist/counter-cultural politics, Ginsberg’s relation to Judaism, while definitely apparent in his work, is hazier. At least one commentator suggests that his poetry represents a new kind of Judaism. Perhaps our reading of this poem, a kind of Kaddish for his mother among many other things, will tell us something about the American Judaism of this great poet’s times–and ours.  You can read the poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49313/kaddish .