Elliott batTzedek

Elliott is a lesbian poet with an MFA in Poetry in Translation who is translating from Hebrew into English a book, Dance of the Lunatic, by a Jewish-Israeli lesbian poet named Shez. It was the first openly lesbian book of poems published in Israel; the poems in it are explicitly feminist and confront The Rule of the Fathers, both those within her cultural/religious tradition and her own father, who physically and sexually abused her. Shez received death threats for the truth these poems tell. For Elliott, these poems were crucial and transformative. Shez explores the intersection between sexual abuse of children and adult sexuality in a way few writers have dared, and she wants English-speaking audiences to have access to the courage and beauty of her work.