The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller

The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller: A Nomad Memory is the first comprehensive treatment of a singularly important American poet of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Michael Heller (b. 1937) has amassed a body of poetry and criticism that places him in the vanguard of modern literature, and this essay collection provides the first extensive critical treatment of his varied career. This book 's multifaceted appraisal of his engagement with poetry as well as crucial ideas across various traditions establishes him as a preeminent writer among his contemporaries and younger generations, and as a major poet in any era.

“Over the past half century, Michael Heller has quietly but emphatically established himself as one of the most masterful poets of a post-Objectivist tradition--indeed, as one of the most thoughtful, lyrical, and philosophically profound of contemporary American poets. In major works of memoir and criticism, he has sensitively unravelled the nomadic origins of cultural and personal identity; in his poems he has limned a glittering constellation of powerful and emotionally resonant meditations on what it means to be Jewish, what it means to be American, what it means to be human. The essays in Jon Curley and Burt Kimmelman's comprehensive and well-edited collection are an excellent introduction and an essential companion to Heller's poetic achievement.”

[This book] is an impressive and seminal body of original scholarship and highly recommended for academic library [and] Literary Studies in general, and Michael Heller supplemental studies lists in particular. Midwest Book Review
Over the past half century, Michael Heller has quietly but emphatically established himself as one of the most masterful poets of a post-Objectivist tradition—indeed, as one of the most thoughtful, lyrical, and philosophically profound of contemporary American poets. In major works of memoir and criticism, he has sensitively unravelled the nomadic origins of cultural and personal identity; in his poems he has limned a glittering constellation of powerful and emotionally resonant meditations on what it means to be Jewish, what it means to be American, what it means to be human. The essays in Jon Curley and Burt Kimmelman’s comprehensive and well-edited collection are an excellent introduction and an essential companion to Heller’s poetic achievement. -- Mark Scroggins, Florida Atlantic University, author of The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky
Michael Heller’s work is richly deserving of the intricate seriousness with which it is read in the splendid essays gathered here. At last, one feels, the scale and ambition of his poetry are clearly announced, the claims of the ethical intelligence duly weighed. This volume affords a necessary and timely celebration. -- Peter Nicholls, New York University, author of George Oppen and the Fate of Modernism

Jon Curley is senior university lecturer in the humanities at New Jersey Institute of Technology.Burt Kimmelman is professor of English at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller: A Nomad Memory is the first comprehensive treatment of a singularly important American poet of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Michael Heller (b. 1937) has amassed a body of poetry and criticism that places him in the vanguard of modern literature, and this essay collection provides the first extensive critical treatment of his varied career. This book 's multifaceted appraisal of his engagement with poetry as well as crucial ideas across various traditions establishes him as a preeminent writer among his contemporaries and younger generations, and as a major poet in any era.

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