Secular Audacity
Mayapple Press, 2025

Joy Gaines-Friedler’s holiness is her abundant empathy, from her parents’ mortality to the horrors of October 7. This poet knows tragedy, yet, “unlike the pious whose precepts prevent disbelief,” she will preserve the bruised apples by cutting away “their damage.” Yes: secular audacity—everywhere present in this collection of old-fashioned Jewish chutzpah.

—Philip Terman, author of  The Whole Mispocha

In a world rife with anguish, this stunning collection is the perfect antidote to despair. These poems remind us that there is beauty in the ordinary moments. Interspersed with the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a prominent Jewish thinker, Heschel's stress on social justice, the sanctity of human life, and the interconnectedness of all beings fuse with these poems, providing profound insights into our shared human experience. “Secular Audacity” arrives at the perfect moment to chase away the shadows, and offer sustenance to those feeling the weight of the fractious world.

—Kelly Fordon, author of What Trammels the Heart

In this impassioned collection of poems, Joy Gaines-Friedler writes poignantly in defense of how history functions as the palimpsest of both human compassion and human violence. There is a quality of audacious, courageous silence – a staunch witnessing – in these poems, as if we are the echoes of what our actions have wrought. In one gorgeous poem (Chevra Kadisha), which could summarize the virtuous life, Joy writes, “if, as they say, we are descendants of a single life, then caring for one is caring for all.” Indeed. These are words to live by.

—Ken Meisel, author of The Light Most Glad of All