About the Author
A Pushcart nominated poet and lawyer, Joyce retired as a Senior Counsel from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Her poetry has been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Poetry South, PANK, Ekphrastic Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Sow’s Ear, Lilith, Beltway Quarterly, Comstock Review, and CALYX. She received an honorable mention in the 2019 Allen Ginsberg poetry contest, was shortlisted for the 2018 O’Donoghue Poetry Prize, and was awarded first place in Poetica’s 2016 Rosenberg competition. Her debut poetry collection, The Shomer, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Blue Lynx Prize, was a semifinalist for the 2020 Elixir Press Anitvenom Award, and a semifinalist for the 2019 Codhill Press Poetry Award. Wild Irish Yenta is Joyce’s debut novel.
Poetry Collections
Wild Irish Yenta
Joyce Sanderly's Debut Novel
A Pushcart nominated poet and lawyer, Joyce retired as a Senior Counsel from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Her poetry has been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Poetry South, PANK, Ekphrastic Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Sow’s Ear, Lilith, Beltway Quarterly, Comstock Review, and CALYX. She received an honorable mention in the 2019 Allen Ginsberg poetry contest, was shortlisted for the 2018 O’Donoghue Poetry Prize, and was awarded first place in Poetica’s 2016 Rosenberg competition. Her debut poetry collection, The Shomer, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Blue Lynx Prize, was a semifinalist for the 2020 Elixir Press Anitvenom Award, and a semifinalist for the 2019 Codhill Press Poetry Award.
Joyce Sanderly's Poetry
Published as Ellen Sazzman
The Shomer
50 Years of the Moose
Such Friends As These
A Pushcart nominated poet and lawyer, Joyce retired as a Senior Counsel from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Her poetry has been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Poetry South, PANK, Ekphrastic Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Sow’s Ear, Lilith, Beltway Quarterly, Comstock Review, and CALYX. She received an honorable mention in the 2019 Allen Ginsberg poetry contest, was shortlisted for the 2018 O’Donoghue Poetry Prize, and was awarded first place in Poetica’s 2016 Rosenberg competition. Her debut poetry collection, The Shomer, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Blue Lynx Prize, was a semifinalist for the 2020 Elixir Press Anitvenom Award, and a semifinalist for the 2019 Codhill Press Poetry Award.
Such friends as these
Poetry Anthology
[Published As Ellen Sazzman]
The Shomer
Poetry
[Published As Ellen Sazzman]
A poetry collection that explores the role of the watchman and guardian in the context of daily routines and significant life events. In Jewish tradition, the Shomer serves in the role of watchman. Among his/her responsibilities, the Shomer is charged with safeguarding the body of the deceased against desecration before burial. According to biblical commentaries, the human soul is somewhat lost and confused between death and burial, and it hovers over the body for several days until interment. While watching the body, the Shomer comforts the spirit of the departed by reading, meditating, and praying.
More generally, the term Shomer has been used to describe an individual who acts as a guardian in the context of both daily routines and significant life events. The goal of the Shomer is to witness, to attend, and to protect those who can no longer protect themselves. Under the best of circumstances, the Shomer gains a glimpse into the liminal, into what happens in the space between love and loss, hunger and fulfillment, forgetting and remembering. The Shomer’s poems seek to illuminate the vigil we all keep as witnesses to our own lives and the lives of others and to expand upon the stories we share to safeguard love, hope, history, and a belief in art’s power to heal.
50 Years of the moose
Poetry Anthology
[Published As Ellen Sazzman]
On July 15, 1972, The New Yorker published a long poem by Elizabeth Bishop, “The Moose,” now regarded a masterpiece. In “50 Years of the Moose” the Surrey Street Poets have come together to honor “The Moose,” by stretching their own poetic voices in ways that respond to Bishop’s achievement, while allowing them to explore ideas and themes relevant to them as individual poets. In the mix of poems, the moose is seen as sacrament, sacrifice and transformation. It is compared with a New England church and lovingly parodied. Still other Surrey Street poets aim to capture the moose’s solitude and resilience in the environment of northern New England.
The poetic forms presented in this collection range from sonnet and villanelle to haiku, prose poems, monologue, dialogue, and free verse. Each section of the anthology is taken from phrases in Bishop’s poem.
“The Moose” is a work that lives deep in the poetic consciousness of contemporary writers. For the Surrey Street Poets, much of the satisfaction of writing these poems arose from letting this consciousness come to the surface in a way not unlike encountering a moose on a country road at night.
About
Joyce Sanderly
A Pushcart nominated poet and lawyer, Joyce retired as a Senior Counsel from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Her poetry has been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Poetry South, PANK, Ekphrastic Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Sow’s Ear, Lilith, Beltway Quarterly, Comstock Review, and CALYX. She received an honorable mention in the 2019 Allen Ginsberg poetry contest, was shortlisted for the 2018 O’Donoghue Poetry Prize, and was awarded first place in Poetica’s 2016 Rosenberg competition. Her debut poetry collection, The Shomer, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Blue Lynx Prize, was a semifinalist for the 2020 Elixir Press Anitvenom Award, and a semifinalist for the 2019 Codhill Press Poetry Award.
The Shomer
Poetry Collection
Published As Ellen Sazzman
A poetry collection that explores the role of the watchman and guardian in the context of daily routines and significant life events. In Jewish tradition, the Shomer serves in the role of watchman. Among his/her responsibilities, the Shomer is charged with safeguarding the body of the deceased against desecration before burial. According to biblical commentaries, the human soul is somewhat lost and confused between death and burial, and it hovers over the body for several days until interment. While watching the body, the Shomer comforts the spirit of the departed by reading, meditating, and praying.
50 Years of the Moose
Poetry Anthology
Published As Ellen Sazzman
“‘The Moose’ is a work that lives deep in the poetic consciousness of contemporary writers. For the Surrey Street Poets, much of the satisfaction of writing these poems arose from letting this consciousness come to the surface in a way not unlike encountering a moose on a country road at night.”
Such Friends as these
Poetry Anthology
Published As Ellen Sazzman
“‘The Moose’ is a work that lives deep in the poetic consciousness of contemporary writers. For the Surrey Street Poets, much of the satisfaction of writing these poems arose from letting this consciousness come to the surface in a way not unlike encountering a moose on a country road at night.”
About Joyce Sanderly
A Pushcart nominated poet and lawyer, Joyce retired as a Senior Counsel from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Her poetry has been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Poetry South, PANK, Ekphrastic Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Sow’s Ear, Lilith, Beltway Quarterly, Comstock Review, and CALYX. She received an honorable mention in the 2019 Allen Ginsberg poetry contest, was shortlisted for the 2018 O’Donoghue Poetry Prize, and was awarded first place in Poetica’s 2016 Rosenberg competition. Her debut poetry collection, The Shomer, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Blue Lynx Prize, was a semifinalist for the 2020 Elixir Press Anitvenom Award, and a semifinalist for the 2019 Codhill Press Poetry Award.