I'd like to mention that my "Rim of Gold: A Cycle of Sonnets on the Weekly Torah Portion" is now on the Madison Jewish Community Council's website, www.jewishmadison.org/main.htm -- one instance of poetry reaching a community of nonpoets!
The Torah (i.e. the Pentateuch) is divided into portions for weekly reading in the synagogue over a year cycle. Each portion has its own body of commentary, which reflects not only theology but the experience of living in the world with the text. In writing the sonnets, I tried to avoid traditional apologetics, on the one hand, and the obvious modern comments on the other, and get back to the creative passion in the text. The sonnets were read in the synagogue over the year 5760 (200-2001)

The visual presentation is striking -- the webmaster, at least, got out of the poems something of what I tried to put into them. Please take a look!

Esther

Esther,

But we would yet return and re-inherit.
Again a generation after loss
We know how the mind shifts a weight to bear it
And searches for the power to keep faith,
Resanctify the land, after this death

is beautiful. What a lovely, professional layout to that site!