The view from Jacob's ladder

the long version

Following his critically acclaimed Modern Poems on the Bible, David Curzon gives us The View from Jacob's Ladder: One Hundred Midrashim, a look at biblical and other classic Jewish texts through his witty poetry and prose. After exploring what modern poets made of these ancient tales and then using the literary devices he learned from the poets and from the ancient commentators, Curzon writes his own midrashim. The View from Jacob's Ladder is a dialogue between the ancient and the modern, as is Modern Poems on the Bible; here, however, the modern voice is Curzon's alone. It is sometimes acerbic, sometimes playful, and speaks to all who are looking for modern approaches to ancient texts.