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Stone, Ira F.

Ira F. Stone is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, The University of Judaism in Los Angeles and the Jewish theological Seminary of America in New York, where he was ordained as a Rabbi in 1979. He has served congregations in Seattle, Washington and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he has been at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel since 1988. He is also a visiting lecturer in Jewish Philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He is the author of two books of Jewish thought, Seeking the Path to Life (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1993) and Reading Levinas/Reading Talmud (Jewish Publication Society, 1998). He has published articles on Jewish thought and philosophy in a variety of journals. Rabbi Stone has been writing poetry since childhood and has published poetry in a variety of journals.

Really Perfect Poem Has an Infinitely Small Vocabulary
1999 0-7734-3113-6
To the extent that this book presents a specific theme, it is that of the inadequacy of language which both compels and confounds the possibility of poetry. Inspired by the explorations of poets as diverse as Jack Spicer, Charles Reznikoff and William Bronk, Stone attempts to reach inside of language itself, trying and failing to describe the everyday experiences of the world, yet reveling in the aesthetic and spiritual enrichment wrought by the failure.