The Price of Love: Three Writers on The Many Faces of Grief

The Price of Love: Three Writers on The Many Faces of Grief

Writers Dina Elenbogen, Pamela Wax, and Cindy Polinsky will join together to read from their latest books and talk about the universal experience of grief. Dina Elenbogen’s most recent collection of poetry, Shore, was called an "eloquent book of testimony andmourning” by poet Edward Hirsch and poet Faisal Mohyuddin said it bears “witness both to the suffering and loss in our world, but also to the healing power of family, faith, community, nature, and, most profoundly, words.” Pamela Wax’s new book of poetry,

Every Single Beast of My Heart, is a guide through her experience of the 5 Zen

remembrances, cataloging losses as benign as umbrellas, and as large as the suicide

of her brother, reproductive rights, and environmental devastation. Poet Jennifer

Franklin said, “This powerful collection examines deep spirituality, aging, and death with nuance and depth.” Cindy Polinsky, a retired union organizer, wrote The Scrappy

Knights of Cancer: an intergalactic journey through grief and beyond, an illustrated

journey through her experience of cancer and her belated reckoning with her own

mother’s death by cancer when Cindy was 8 years old. Is her mom the Angel of Death

or her guardian angel? Or something else?

Dina Elenbogen is author of the poetry collections, Shore (Glass Lyre Press) and

Apples of the Earth (Spuyten Duyvil, NY), as well as the memoir, Drawn from Water

(BKMkPress, University of Missouri). She has received fellowships from the Illinois Arts

Council, the Ragdale Foundation, and Yetzirah: a hearth for Jewish Poetry. Her writing

has appeared in many anthologies and literary journals. She teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago Writer’s Studio.

Pamela Wax is the author of the poetry collections Walking the Labyrinth (Main Street

Rag, 2022), Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023), and Every Single Beast of My Heart (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026). Her poems have been published in dozens of literary

magazines and have received three Best of the Net nominations and several awards.

An ordained rabbi, Pam lives in North Adams.

Cindy Polinsky is a writer, painter, retired union organizer, a new member of the Order

of the Scrappy Knights of Cancer, and happily leaning into love. She is the author of

The Scrappy Knights of Cancer: an intergalactic journey through grief and beyond.

Cindy lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her bestie, Marty, and their dogs Junoand Xena. They have two amazing grown children, William and Rosie.