ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Alicia Suskin Ostriker’s treatment of aging and spirituality in her late poetry, including the act of writing as a spiritual process. To do so, this chapter analyzes the motif of the aging Jewish woman as vessel that recurs in Ostriker’s poems and commentary. This chapter explores what difference it makes for Ostriker to find herself imaged in the feminine Shekhinah as opposed to the masculine Yahweh in The Book of Life: Selected Jewish Poems 1979–2011 (2012) and The Old Woman, The Tulip, and The Dog (2014). The poet’s ultimate desire to reunite the masculine and feminine aspects of God champions an androgynous Godhead that some social science research suggests can be a psychologically satisfying and productive alternative to masculine God imagery for women.
