How can we express our concern, grief, and awe for this fragile planet that we call our home? Poetry can train us to listen deeply to the voices of the earth. Oak Park poet Hila Ratzabi will read from her award-winning debut book of poetry,There Are Still Woods, which is described as “a radiant appraisal of life at the precipice of climate crisis and a haunting elegy for all we stand to lose.” Following the reading, we will hear from Pamela Tate, a member of OPCAN (Oak Park Climate Action Network), on local efforts to combat the climate crisis and how we can all get involved. There will be time for a Q&A with the audience, and books will be available for sale and signing by the author.
Hila Ratzabi is the author of There Are Still Woods (June Road Press, 2022), which won a gold Nautilus Book Award and was a finalist for a National Indie Excellence Award. Her poetry has been published widely in literary journals and in The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Ratzabi is director of communications at North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Illinois, and lives in Oak Park.