Kaddish merges my response to two events in 2001; my father’s death early that year and the terrorist bombings of September 11.  I chose vinyl and plastic bags as adaptive materials for a set of “outdoor poem-paintings” at Allandale Farm, a working organic farm where plastic sheeting is in constant use. They also refer to body bags.

 

The six-stanza poem, which begins with the line “Thou shalt not jump,” invokes Old Testament cadences including the Ten Commandments and the Hebrew mourning prayer but shifts them to unexpected word combinations.

 

The piece was shown on what would have been my father’s 82nd birthday.  My father survived many death-defying jumps in combat in WWII, parachuting into farms, deserts, beaches, and forests as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army.