“These poems, fruits of a lifetime, take us so many places, from former Yugoslavia and Paris to ‘the up and down of everyday,’ and into so many corners of the heart.”
— Katha Pollitt
Jewish Book Council Review
How can contemporary Jewish poets adequately respond to the history of our time when it is continually and rapidly revising itself? How do we describe countries, languages, and borders that we experienced but that no longer exist; articulate the slippage of political beliefs that we thought were unshakeable; and remember ancestors whom we can neither locate nor even begin to imagine? Finally, what foundation can we discover, and hold in our grasp, to keep ourselves in balance against these swiftly changing narratives?
Ha’aretz Review
Art & Culture | Books
Summer Reading | From Brooklyn to the Middle East, Lots of Longing – and a Bit of Moral Reckoning
In Jo-Ann Mort's collection of poems, the yearning is for living ethically, while in André Aciman's book of novellas, it's to recover something lost. Daniel Kehlmann's novel explores how passion turns into complicity. Three new and recommended books
Thanks to the Jewish Book Council for publishing my essay: How to Write Truths: Between Poetry and Journalism
A life-long commitment to social evolution — and, occasionally, revolution — animates the poems in Jo-Ann Mort’s debut collection, A Precise Chaos. Moving from Mostar to Oaxaca, Paris to Taormina, Poland to Israel/ Palestine, Mort’s peripatetic poems reflect her experiences as a trade union activist, a political organizer, and a peace activist in the Middle East. Refusing to evade the hard questions called for by a life honestly examined, she asks: “We, who are so righteous./Where does it lead us?”
My interview with Lara Stecewycz of Arrowsmith Press on A Precise Chaos.
“Jo-Ann Mort’s poems move with astonishing mastery between
the exigencies of history and the intensities of private life.”
–Brian Morton
Recent Articles
Poetry as Secular Prayer
Feb 22, 2022 • Arrowsmith Press
This essay, previously published in Arrowsmith Journal, speaks to many of the themes in my new book
How to Write Truths: Between Poetry and Journalism
June 02, 2025 • Jewish Book Council
Upcoming Events
Past Events
I’m thrilled to have been the kick-off guest for the Garden Series at Carrie Lindsey Beauty on Tuesday, June 10th, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn for a "celebration of the clients and local artists who inspire us and elevate our communal consciousness".
I was in conversation with another Carrie Lindsey client and fellow author Heidi Smith . The conversation began at 6:30 with a reading from the book afterwards.
Books were available for purchase and signing.
Book Launch
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Cambridge, MA
And here’s a rough cut video of my Brooklyn reading, co-hosted by Community Bookstore and Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope