These poems, fashioned with compact power and formal elegance, are a luminous demonstration of how poetry can be the vehicle for both confronting our darkest fears and yet continuing to affirm the preciousness of life. The Moon is Almost Full is the crowning achievement of Chana Bloch’s distinguished career as a poet.
—ROBERT ALTER

“Under siege, I am still a kingdom,” writes Chana Bloch in this signal, singing, singeing collection of poems. Each page verifies the beauty and scope and surge of a life both extraordinary and daily, embraced not in spite of our mortality, but because of it.
—JANE HIRSHFIELD

Also available through Ashby Village is the DVD Lifelines and Deadlines, a film of a special village event in which Chana Bloch read from poems she wrote during her terminal illness—later published posthumously—and discussed, with candor and humor, her attitude to end-of-life issues. For more information on the movie visit the Ashby Village website.

Chana Bloch (1940-2017) was a poet, translator, scholar, and teacher. During her lifetime she authored six books of poems and six books of translations of Hebrew poetry both ancient and contemporary. She also authored a critical study on George Herbert. Bloch was professor emerita of English literature and creative writing at Mills College, where she […]

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