The Peripheries Poetry Series and Sherah Bloor at the Center for the Study of World Religions 

In working to advance its mission to “promote the study of the world’s religions in their classical and contemporary forms,” the Center for the Study of World Religions(CSWR) focuses its efforts along five themes, one of them being, “poetry, philosophy, and religion.”

Since 2017, Sherah Bloor, CSWR Resident Fellow, host of the Poetry Series, and Editor-in-Chief of Peripheries, has played an instrumental role in addressing the Center’s focus on poetry through programming and resources, in addition to offering a creative venue for HDS poets. Poetry Series initiatives can be viewed as a three-legged stool; talks and workshops with visiting poets, in-house poetry workshops, and the publication Peripheries.

CSWR Director Charlie Stang reflects on the Poetry Series and Bloor's initiatives. "Of all the efforts the CSWR has supported over these past five years, the launch of the series on “Poetry, Philosophy, and Religion,” and the publication of the journal Peripheries, were our earliest successes, and are perhaps what I am most proud of as I look back on my tenure so far. Both efforts have been led with exquisite care and discernment by Sherah Bloor, a brilliant poet, philosopher, and scholar of religion in her own right, and to whom I am and always will be very grateful."

Established in 2017 by HDS students Shira Telushkin and Byron Russell, Peripheries is a non-profit literary and arts journal that publishes artistic work that is, broadly understood, ”peripheral;” work that explores the interstices between discourses, traditions, languages, forms, and genres.

In this spirit, along with publishing poetry, visual art, and short stories, the scope is expansive, including translations, interviews, creative nonfiction, reviews, aphorisms, recipes, instructions, and manifestos. Peripheries encourages formal experimentation that is in a mutually informing, organic relation to the artist’s topic or question, which might also explore the peripheral: the marginal, the incidental, the boundary-experience, the tangential, the liminal, and particularly those metaxical spaces (that both attract and repel) between artistry, philosophical speculation, mystical experience, and religious traditions.

Peripheries, published annually by Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions under the supervision of its director, Professor Charles M. Stang, is proud to publish emerging writers, alongside established luminaries. They invite new artists to submit their work, including people under-represented in traditional literary circles.

Sherah Bloor: In Her Own Words

CSWR: This is your 4th year running the Poetry Series. How was this year different from previous years?

Sherah Bloor: We’ve just had our first in-person event in three years, Tracy K. Smith’s workshop, which was heartwarming and inspiring. But Covid forced some modifications that were positive, and we are keeping. We gained things, including a larger, international audience that we are nurturing by continuing to host hybrid events and online workshops. But there is something really special about getting to meet a visiting poet in person and all those little interactions and creative conversations before and after events. I have planned 6 to 8 in-person events for the coming year, with some online components.

Over the years, we have invited some of the most famous and well-known poets to visit, while meanwhile poets from our own community – who attend our own workshop – are publishing first books. Some of these books have already made a big impact on the poetry world. We need to celebrate the achievements of our own community. I started to do this by inviting Tawanda Mulalu, Isabel Duarte-Gray, and Jess Yuan most recently. And I hope we will hear Amanda Gunn read in the fall.

CSWR: Over the years, what readings or conversations have stayed with you and why? What would you list as your “greatest hits?”

Sherah Bloor: This is personal, but I loved the event with Robert Hass most. He has been so formative for my own writing. Everyone has their poet whose music and voice gets them writing. I started out by trying to copy certain moves he makes in Human Wishes, and I always revisit that book when I have a block. It was great to meet him in person. In the workshop, he asked me – looking slightly confused – from where I’d developed a certain style. To me it seemed obvious that his work was the source!

I found my conversation with Kaveh Akbar – who is so generous – really inspiring. I also think that the event with the new poets from Gaza will always stay with me.

And I want to remember the unrecorded events that were just fantastic. I am so annoyed that there is no record of, for example, Josh Bell’s incredible talk or Peter Gizzi’s reading.

CSWR: How does Peripheries distinguish itself from other poetry journals? What sets Peripheries apart?

Sherah Bloor: I think the first thing anyone would notice is simply the heft of the journal. We produce a really serious volume, annually. It feels substantial. That length permits a breadth of scope lacking in slim quarterlies. True to our name, we are committed to publishing not only brilliant poems – we do that, of course – but also ‘peripheral’ materials, like unopened letters and craft notes, film stills and archival gems. We can also take risks with longer series and the tangential or experimental works of famous writers, which other journals tend to avoid. And we can set these alongside the work of never-before-published writers.

Flicking through the journal, the second thing one would notice is the abundance of visual art, and now, since the last volume, sound, either in the visual form of musical notation or as recordings in the digital copy. Being mindful of sound, we are also now recording poets reading their poems. We are very mindful of these minute interactions, between sound, sight, and image; always playing with the boundaries there, including, for example concrete poems and ekphrastic. We want to think about the peripheries between genres, voices, and languages (we’ve always included foreign language poets, too).

I think we also did something unusual and really great with the guest-edited special folios. Apart from our name, we don’t have themes, like other journals, but we hand over a section of the journal for guest editors to curate. Sometimes this allows us to introduce our readership to material that they might never otherwise be able to access, and it can give underrepresented poets a new platform. A reader is also able to learn about this material from a specialist.

The journal is also unique in that it is one element of the whole poetry program at the CSWR, which really aims to provide all the elements of an MFA to a wide audience. New writers can attend craft talks with famous poets and practice their craft in our CSWR workshops. When ready, they can then submit to Peripheries for publication, serve as readers or editors, or conduct interviews with poets they admire, or have their first books reviewed.

CSWR: What can we expect to see in 2023-24?

Sherah Bloor: Big things are happening. The journal is going to be distributed by Harvard University Press and will reach a much wider audience. At the same time, I am keen to tie the journal more closely to its roots at HDS. It is important that we are housed by a divinity school, and I want Peripheries to be the natural place for poets to send work that explores religious or mystical experience, especially if in keeping with the ‘Peripheries’ name – the liminal. At the same time, we are pushing our theme further. We’ll be publishing even more peripheral work (drafts, postcards, storyboards, manifestos), while maintaining that core collection of exceptional writing and art. From that central commitment, our scope keeps broadening. As we started including sound, we are going to try to actually start including taste and smell! I won’t go into too much detail about that. I want some things to be a surprise.

I also want the poetry series to be a surprise. I am working on a very exciting line-up for the next academic year. I am planning to host day-long symposia, a new format for us. It will allow us to honor these celebrated poets with a deeper and more intense consideration of their work, which is rare. But I am also particularly concerned now with supporting emerging writers. We will continue to provide craft talks, workshops, reading, and mentorship opportunities, but we want to also host different types of performances. Contact me to float any ideas!

But the most exciting event for the year will be the launch of the 6th edition of Peripheries on November 30, 2023. It’s the first HDS-hosted, in-person launch for a while and it’s going to be big – a lot of readings, performances, and viewings that will provide a taste of the contributions.

Program Highlights over the Years
2017 – Robin Coste Lewis
2018-2019 – Evie Shockley, Sherwin Bitsui, Susan Brind Morrow, Susan Howe
2018 – Anne Waldman, Josh Bell, Jan Zwicky
2019 – Robert Hass
2020 – Fred Moten, Kate Zambreno
2021 – Cameron Awkward-Rich, Kaveh Akbar
2022 – Robyn Schiff, Words Surviving Siege and War: Poems from Gaza
2023 - New Voices in Poetry with Tawanda Mulalu, Isabel Duarte-Gray, and Jess Yuan, & Tracy K. Smith: Craft Talk & Workshop

About Sherah Bloor:
Sherah Bloor grew up between South Africa and Scotland and studied philosophy in Australia and the United States, where she is currently completing a doctorate in philosophy of religion at Harvard University. She is also the editor in chief of the Harvard Divinity School’s literary and arts journal, Peripheries. Her poetry is published and forthcoming in Chicago Review, Colorado Review, Conjunctions, and Lana Turner, among others.