I write as a poet for a general audience, I write as a woman, I write as a Jew, and there are communities of readers for whom these identities are de… - Alicia Ostriker

I grew up as a third-generation atheist-socialist Jew. My religious training consisted of being told that religion was the opiate of the masses.

I typically don’t work in fixed forms, because I like a poem to have a feel of improvisation about it.

Poetry gives you permission to put into language what your reality is without sounding like an op-ed. I don’t think I ever get very far from politics; sometimes what I write is overtly political, sometimes it isn’t, but it’s always there. Just like being a Jew is always there. The difference between writing prose and writing poetry for me is that when I’m writing prose I know what I think before I start to write and when I’m writing poetry I’m just crawling into the dark. If something doesn’t surprise me I know it’s not a good poem. Poetry is very often problem solving for me, like there’s something I don’t understand and the only way I have of untangling it is by writing.