Judith Tannenbaum “Open-hearted and even-handed,” Hettie Jones

photo credit: Sara Rachel Press

Author Biography

Judith Tannenbaum is a writer and teacher who cares very deeply about a vision and practice of art-making that includes all of us. She has received two California Arts Council Artist-in-Residence grants.
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Influences

As a little girl, I listened to the stories told and the opinions expressed by my large, extended, verbal family. As a young woman and writer I loved and learned from Doris Lessing, Henry Miller, Grace Paley and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Romare Beardon's collages and Kenneth Patchen's picture poems, Fellini's 8 1/2, the poems and vision of William Blake and Czeslaw Milosz.

Web Links

from Booklist

Date of Review:

09/01/2000

Published Work:

Disguised As A Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin

Reviewer:

Donna Seaman

Source:

Booklist

Review Excerpt:

“Tannenbaum, a poet, teacher, and passionate community art advocate, shares her frank and moving recollections of teaching poetry at San Quentin prison during the 1980s. As she chronicles her demanding routines and indelible revelations in this realm of caged bodies and blazing souls, she articulates her belief that creativity is our birthright, no matter where we reside, and describes the liberating power of poetry as experienced by her students, men who have committed crimes but who write poems of heart-jolting beauty and insight.”