J.J. Steinfeld

Deconstructing Prayer J.J. Steinfeld

People pray and pray to God or gods the world and the past full of those prayerful words colliding and colliding

and a billion people still don’t win the lottery and a billion more won’t live a hundred years and your team still lost by a substantial score

maybe they should pray louder or perhaps softer, more distinctly enunciate each and every word as if it contains love and humility in abundance

maybe they should be silent perfectly silent let the heart speak and see what happens then.

Canadian poet, fiction writer, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published 23 books, including Identity Dreams and Memory Sounds (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2014), Madhouses in Heaven, Castles in Hell (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2015), An Unauthorized Biography of Being (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2016), Absurdity, Woe Is Me, Glory Be (Poetry, Guernica Editions, 2017), A Visit to the Kafka Café (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2018), and Gregor Samsa Was Never in The Beatles (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2019), Morning Bafflement and Timeless Puzzlement (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2020), Somewhat Absurd, Somehow Existential (Poetry, Guernica Editions, 2021), and Acting on the Island (Stories, Pottersfield Press, 2022).His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies internationally, and over 50 of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States.