On Writing I am a poet, non-fiction writer, and diarist. My writing has appeared in anthologies and in a variety of newspapers and periodicals: The Dakota House Journal, Spindrift, Midway Review, Off Our Backs, The American Psychoanalyst, The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review, Conservative Judaism, Baltimore Jewish Times, Washington Week, London Jewish Observer, Syracuse Jewish Observer, Seattle Jewish Transcript, JT News, Real Change, Chrysanthemum, History Link, Religious Studies Review, Switched-on-Gutenberg, Mentress Moon, Museletter of the National Poetry Therapy Association, The Tree Book, poetrybay, Moondance, Literary Mama, In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing, DRASH: A Northwest Mosaic, Maggid: A Journal of Jewish Literature, Northwest Prime Time, ACP today: Association for Child Psychoanalysis Newsletter, American Imago: Psychoanalysis and the Human Sciences, Pontoon 9, Identity Theory, and others. For my Ph.D. (University of Washington, History, 1994), I wrote a thesis on American Jewish Feminism, focusing on the politics and poetry of Holocaust poet, Irena Klepfisz. I am most interested in Klepfisz's use of the poem as a means to confront loss, grief, and history. Klepfisz's works include Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essay's, Speeches, and Diatribes, and A Few Words in the Mother Tongue: Poems Selected and New (1971-1990) and have been published by Eighth Mountain Press, Portland, Oregon. My essay, "Irena Klepfisz, Loss and the Poetry of Exile," was published in The Journal of Poetry Therapy. I wrote The Homeless One: A Poem in Many Voices: (Seattle: Kota Press, 2000), a poetic docu-drama about homelessness and schizophrenia, in response to an email conversation with a friend. Thanks to Dr. Rudolf Suesske of Cologne, Germany, The Homeless One, is now published on line. It has been used as Reader's Theatre in Provincetown and Seattle. A NY director is staging it to raise money for a homeless shelter. My work on Seattle psychoanalyst, Edith Buxbaum, is becoming an Auto/biograpy or what some might call Creative Non-fiction. It consists of letters, poems, dreams, essays and history. My essays on Edith Buxbaum have appeared in The Journal of Poetry therapy, HistoryLink, and other venues. I have presented papers on Buxbaum for the American Psychoanalytic Association. the Pacific Northwest Historian's Guild, PEN USA Women's Biography Forum, University of Washington Independent Scholar's Group, and other venues. On Teaching In my work with groups and individuals, I focus on accessing voice. This skill is achieved through writing practice and developing a sense of one's own writing style(s) and process(es). My Poeming the Silence classes address these needs. While we use poems to trigger writing and thinking and to uncover silences and secrets within us, all written forms are encouraged -- diaries, fragments, stories, memoirs, dreams, recipes, lists, whatever we discover. Participants interview each other, write poetic dyads, read their work and sometimes combine collage art with writing. I teach privately and, occasionally, in instituional settings. I have taught at Richard Hugo House, Cancer Lifeline, Seattle Community Colleges, and other venues. I work with individuals throughout the year. For a sampling of classes taught, please click here. On Curating the It's About Time Writers Reading Series In 1989, I founded Seattle's It's About Time Writers' Reading Series where beginning and experienced writers and poets read from their work. The series, now in its 18th year, is held on the second Thurs. of each month at the Ballard Branch of the Seattle Public Library. I view the reading series - as well as the page - as a shelter for self-expression and healing, a way to share one's inner self with others, a place where language-masons maintain contact with each other so they can contribute to an on-going dialogue for progress and for peace within the self and in the world. Page As Haven For me, the page is a haven, not for the purpose of hiding, but as a means of cultivating that place within the self that works most effectively to bring about real and metaphorical shelter - regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual preference - to all who live among us -- the homeless, the mentally ill, the disabled, the different, the old. My prizes include a Washington Poets Association Award for poetry and an American Jewish Historical Association Award for local Jewish history. I am a member of the National Writers Union, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, the Washington Poets Association, & the Pacific Northwest Historian's Guild |
Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ph.D. my websites a journal of the writer's role in society |
Work Samples Biography Questioning An Icon: Edith Buxbaum and the Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute 1947-1982 Auto/Biography "Edith Buxbaum, Latency and Me - Between the Oedipus Complex and Adolescence: The Quiet Time - Letter to Edith" |
Poems Eating Pavlova by D.M.Thomas Teaching Photo Album Bubbe Meinse |
This page was last updated on: October 7, 2008
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Poems Eating Pavlova by D.M.Thomas Teaching Photo Album Bubbe Meinse |
Work Samples Biography Questioning An Icon: Edith Buxbaum and the Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute 1947-1982 Auto/Biography "Edith Buxbaum, Latency and Me - Between the Oedipus Complex and Adolescence: The Quiet Time - Letter to Edith" |
Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ph.D. my websites a journal of the writer's role in society |
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by Sue |
In My Dream Patience covers the earth like a down blanket that warms fingers in Afghanistan, Israel, Uzbekistan, Georgia, the West Bank, Gaza, India, Africa, Bosnia, Iraq, the United States. In My Dream Humility is a mansion whose roof oversees soldiers shedding guns and whose rooms house world leaders shaking hands. In My Dream Gentleness is no coward. Love is borderless. Beams of light have not replaced the two towers. Danny Pearl is alive. In My Dream Poetry raises children who know peace. - Esther Altshul Helfgott |
On Writing I am a poet, non-fiction writer, and diarist. My writing has appeared in anthologies and in a variety of newspapers and periodicals: The Dakota House Journal, Spindrift, Midway Review, Off Our Backs, The American Psychoanalyst, The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review, Conservative Judaism, Baltimore Jewish Times, Washington Week, London Jewish Observer, Syracuse Jewish Observer, Seattle Jewish Transcript, JT News, Real Change, Chrysanthemum, History Link, Religious Studies Review, Switched-on-Gutenberg, Mentress Moon, Museletter of the National Poetry Therapy Association, The Tree Book, poetrybay, Moondance, Literary Mama, In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing, DRASH: A Northwest Mosaic, Maggid: A Journal of Jewish Literature, Northwest Prime Time, ACP today: Association for Child Psychoanalysis Newsletter, American Imago: Psychoanalysis and the Human Sciences, Pontoon 9, Identity Theory, and others. For my Ph.D. (University of Washington, History, 1994), I wrote a thesis on American Jewish Feminism, focusing on the politics and poetry of Holocaust poet, Irena Klepfisz. I am most interested in Klepfisz's use of the poem as a means to confront loss, grief, and history. Klepfisz's works include Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essay's, Speeches, and Diatribes, and A Few Words in the Mother Tongue: Poems Selected and New (1971-1990) and have been published by Eighth Mountain Press, Portland, Oregon. My essay, "Irena Klepfisz, Loss and the Poetry of Exile," was published in The Journal of Poetry Therapy. I wrote The Homeless One: A Poem in Many Voices: (Seattle: Kota Press, 2000), a poetic docu-drama about homelessness and schizophrenia, in response to an email conversation with a friend. Thanks to Dr. Rudolf Suesske of Cologne, Germany, The Homeless One, is now published on line. It has been used as Reader's Theatre in Provincetown and Seattle. A NY director is staging it to raise money for a homeless shelter. My work on Seattle psychoanalyst, Edith Buxbaum, is becoming an Auto/biograpy or what some might call Creative Non-fiction. It consists of letters, poems, dreams, essays and history. My essays on Edith Buxbaum have appeared in The Journal of Poetry therapy, HistoryLink, and other venues. I have presented papers on Buxbaum for the American Psychoanalytic Association. the Pacific Northwest Historian's Guild, PEN USA Women's Biography Forum, University of Washington Independent Scholar's Group, and other venues. On Teaching In my work with groups and individuals, I focus on accessing voice. This skill is achieved through writing practice and developing a sense of one's own writing style(s) and process(es). My Poeming the Silence classes address these needs. While we use poems to trigger writing and thinking and to uncover silences and secrets within us, all written forms are encouraged -- diaries, fragments, stories, memoirs, dreams, recipes, lists, whatever we discover. Participants interview each other, write poetic dyads, read their work and sometimes combine collage art with writing. I teach privately and, occasionally, in instituional settings. I have taught at Richard Hugo House, Cancer Lifeline, Seattle Community Colleges, and other venues. I work with individuals throughout the year. For a sampling of classes taught, please click here. On Curating the It's About Time Writers Reading Series In 1989, I founded Seattle's It's About Time Writers' Reading Series where beginning and experienced writers and poets read from their work. The series, now in its 18th year, is held on the second Thurs. of each month at the Ballard Branch of the Seattle Public Library. I view the reading series - as well as the page - as a shelter for self-expression and healing, a way to share one's inner self with others, a place where language-masons maintain contact with each other so they can contribute to an on-going dialogue for progress and for peace within the self and in the world. Page As Haven For me, the page is a haven, not for the purpose of hiding, but as a means of cultivating that place within the self that works most effectively to bring about real and metaphorical shelter - regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual preference - to all who live among us -- the homeless, the mentally ill, the disabled, the different, the old. My prizes include a Washington Poets Association Award for poetry and an American Jewish Historical Association Award for local Jewish history. I am a member of the National Writers Union, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, the Washington Poets Association, & the Pacific Northwest Historian's Guild |
WRITING WORKS for memory, healing & art's sake |
