A haunting, humane poetry collection confronting grief, war, and Jewish identity after October 7.

SYNOPSIS

Written in the year following October 7, 2023, A Prayer of Six Wings is a powerful and compassionate poetry collection grappling with grief, trauma, and moral complexity. Owen Lewis weaves together personal reflection, poetic journalism, and Jewish theology to mourn Israeli and Palestinian suffering, confront rising antisemitism, and search for prayer amid devastation. These poems resist easy answers, offering instead a deeply human reckoning with loss and love.

WHY WE LOVE IT

"For poetry lovers, this book is a must read.”

Nili Belkin
Member of the Great Jewish Bookshelf 2026 Selection Committee
 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Owen Lewis is the author of four collections of poetry, Marriage Map, Sometimes Full of Daylight, Field Light, and most recently Prayer of Six Wings, along with three chapbooks. best man was the recipient of the 2016 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize of the New England Poetry Club. Field Light was a “Must Read” selection of the Massachusetts Books Awards. Major prizes include: The E.E. Cummings Prize (2024), The Rumi Prize for Poetry/Arts & Letters (2023), The Guernsey International Poetry Prize (2023), and The International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine (2016). Other prizes include: Second Prize 2018 Wigtown (Scotland) International Poetry Competition and Finalist, 2017 Pablo Neruda Award. His poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Poetry Wales, The Mississippi Review, Southward, The Four Way Review, Cider Press Review, and Arts and Letters.  He is a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics and lectures extensively on topics of Narrative Medicine.

owenlewispoet.com