Description
Book SynopsisThe latest book of critical prose from renowned poet and scholar of Jewish literature Norman Finkelstein. Through a rigorous examination of contemporary poetry, poetics, and poets like Helen Adam, Nathaniel Mackey, Donald Revel, and more, the text exhibits a poetic fascination with transcendence and radical delight at language.
Trade Review“For decades, Norman Finkelstein has mined the deep interiority of fellow poets for whom writing extends beyond creative expression and cultural commentary into the realm of the spirit. In
To Go into the Words, he continues his groundbreaking work by exploring the visionary poetics of writers as varied as Helen Adam, Michael Palmer, and Nathaniel Mackey. What makes this book—and Finkelstein’s work as a whole—stand out is that in chapter after chapter we see the Philosopher’s Stone being polished by someone who knows that the most engaging criticism is, in fact, a form of celebration.”—Derek Pollard, Founder of Constellar Creative
“Finkelstein, one of our most perceptive poet-critics, gives us masterful readings of important contemporary poets in essays that integrate his decades-long conversation with their work. The last sections examine the gnostic impulse in poetry and commentary of secular Jewish poets, including Finkelstein himself, that leads them, through language, to ‘circle around some. . . absent center which still has compelling power.’”—Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. is a poet, translator, and corporate consultant. Her most recent book of poetry is
Salient (New Directions 2020).
“We approach truth, said Gershom Scholem, not by systems but by commentary. In these essays on an array of poets ranging from William Bronk to Nathaniel Mackey, Norman Finkelstein provides commentary informed by a host of systems—deconstruction, the New Criticism, Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxian materialism, and more. Standing above them all is the idea of gnosis, the quest for insight into who we are and who we might become. And, in Finkelstein’s comments on midrash, we find the best commentary yet on Finkelstein’s own poetry. Open this book and open the world.”—Robert Archambau, author of
Poetry and Uselessness from Coleridge to Ashbery and
Alice B. Toklas is MissingTable of Contents- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- William Bronk
- Helen Adam
- Ronald Johnson
- Michael Palmer
- Nathaniel Mackey
- Paul Bray
- Lawrence Joseph
- Total Midrash
- Secular Jewish Culture and Its Radical Poetic Discontents
- The Master of Turning
