CHANA BLOCH was born in New York City and grew up in the Bronx. Her poems and translations from Yiddish and Hebrew have appeared in a variety of periodicals and anthologies. She received the YMHA Discovery Award for her poetry and the Columbia University Translation Center Award for A Dress of Fire: Selected Poems of Dahlia Ravikovitch. Ms. Bloch is now completing a critical study of George Herbert's poetry. She lives with her husband and two sons in Berkeley, California and teaches at Mills College.

"Chana Bloch's poems whisper swiftly what has been in us since we began. They are telling, quick revelations of the creatures we are, creatures we may not ignore and must not distort. Chana Bloch holds human existence in constant sure focus."—Richard Hugo

"These are very original, intelligent, and deeply-felt poems, they are tragic and comic—and above all, they are always fresh."—Yehuda Amichai