Citrus-Inspired Ceramics

© KJ Hannah Greenberg, 2013

Citrus-Inspired Ceramics
Aldrich Press. USA.
September 2013. Buy it here.

"Hannah Greenberg crafts her poems like a master chef makes a confection. She starts with a perfectly baked crust of theme, be it whimsical or profound; pours in a rich filling of image and story; covers all with a titillating topping, a lush and lascivious whipping of words (read these aloud for sheer joy of the sound). Any one of these poems is the perfect dessert to complete a poetry feast. Read with a double espresso, though; you'll want your eyes wide open, so as not to miss a single, delicious crumb."
MH Clay, Poetry Editor of Mad Swirl

"KJ Hannah Greenberg is the voice in the desert, the one who calls the faithful, who tells the truth, who sees the future. Sometimes, it's the sweet juice of melon on the tongue, other times it's the fall of missiles on the city square. Bring a shawl to listen, you are going to want to stay a while in these pages." Russell Streur, Editor of The Camel Saloon.

Citrus-Inspired Ceramics’ seventy-eight verbal snapshots of Israel are friendly word pictures, which cover Middle Eastern life from Jerusalem’s caper blossom-filled limestone crevices to Route 6’s fueling stations’ recyclable, plastic benches. Within these sunny, sandy, cosmic pages, both butterflies and bullets fly.

A mélange of the Old World and of the New World, Citrus-Inspired Ceramics explores, all at once, weddings, friendships, intergovernmental strife, and the Holocaust. Here, egrets, beggars, ministers, ulpan teachers, and small children are simultaneously accessible. This collection provides entrée to intercultural celebrations, to global posturing, and to drip irrigation, as well as to strong coffee. What’s more, the verities of The Garden of Eden, of the ancient fathers and mothers, of the evil influence, and of The Almighty, Himself, are evoked, in chorus, in this book’s pages.

In grappling with the complexity of the Holy Land’s mall lines, religiously diverse neighborhoods, and military zones, Citrus-Inspired Ceramics improves our ability: to determine our personal and political values, rather than to allow the mass media to define them, to transport ourselves to this singular location, east of the Mediterranean, and south of heaven, to embrace Israel’s unique position in time and in space, and to cozy to the historical excitement for our Earthly sanctuary. While it is better to live in Israel than to visit, and better to visit than never to set food on these green acres, it remains more praiseworthy to wrestle with the complexity of this profound milieu than to do nothing to understand Israel at all.

Preface
Dedication

The People
As Long as We Can Put Nutmeg inOur Coffee: An Ode to the Holy Land
Airline Aliyah Achdut
Lamb Chops in Miami: A Chronology of our Shared Lives
A Response to a Potential Olah: Foo-Foo Ain't Worth Squat When it Comes to Kavanah
Priests Who Purify
Coins and Fleas: Committed Beggars
New Camels
Not the 32
Unarticulated Achdut:Lessons on a Mehadrin Bus
Yet Israeli in the A.M.
Halcyon Chuppah
Media Malaise: A Perspective from MigratingParakeets Flocking in Jerusalem's Cyprus Trees
Bedouins in Sunglasses
Sway Incarnate
Hidden Tzaddik
The Rabbi Blessed, Drank
American Special: Acculturating to the Holiest City
Did Moshe Cry? A Parent (and a Child) Answers
The Official Shaliachof Jerusalem
Mrs. Moshiach

Their Purpose
Millipedes Matter in Ber Sheva
Aliyah's First Anniversary: Forbearance
Living as Though it Matters
Windows of Understanding: Middle East Tete' a Tete'
Tenancy
My Great Anglo Accent
Calling Chasmonaim: International Relations near Jerusalem
An Increase in "Voiced" Prejudice
Casters of Pornographic Derision
Not the Lavender Hills
The Egret Tree, South of Haifa
The Checkpoint's Closed
The Fire-Offerings of Israel
When Bringing the Shoah
Speeding on Rosh Hashanah
Yerida
Sukkot Chicken and Fixings
Founders' Flesh: Tzion will Rise Again
The Klal'sRedemption Requirement

Their Place
Lake Wyola's Mile High Farm: Sociology in America
On the Hills of Ramot Gimmel
A Bra Shop in Har Nof
Mala'alot Dafna's Center: Community Teichel
Coleslaw in the Holy City
Ina Jerusalem Women's Gym: Jews, Arabsand Ellen's 1,000th Show
The Jerusalem Mall
Rechov Hanaviim
Maki at Racaiim
AnOleh's Chanukah Habayit
All Guns and Smiles
Bucking at Captains
A Failed Test of Emunah:Tomorrow, I'll Eat Watermelon
The Yeshiva at the End of the Universe
The New/Old Land
A Small, Yellow Apple: A Sukkah Poem
For Hadara: Old Katamon's Citrus-Inspired Ceramics
Bris in "The Broken Shul"
Gan Eden, I Think
Their Poise
Pharaoh Bathed
Back in Ulpan
26 Shekel: A Cost Analysis of Aliyah
The Futility of Status
When Bus Drivers Heeded Laws
In the Room (of the Boy in Kita Bet)
Arising to Grasp the Past
Short Decades of International Conflict
Jerusalem's JulyLilacs
Grooving with Jewish Mama Pixie Dust on Mo'ed:We Rejoice
Articulations Calling Peace
Upon the Generations: The Necessity of Prayer in Israel
Grooving the Land, the People
Reserve Duty Shalom
Shiv'ah
Jerusalem Sunrise
Origins' Hymn
The Boss' Orchestrated Metamorphoses
Am Yisrael Chai
Facilitating our Remembering of Amalek via Danger Signals

Credits
Acknowledgements
About the Author