You may had heard of Norman Finkelstein. You may have heard of Michael Heller. You may have heard about Norman Finkelstein and Michael Heller. You might have heard of them. It is possible that you remember seeing that they would read. That they would read together at Notre Dame. It is possible that you have not. Possible that you have seen this, but question your memory. Perhaps it was in a dream. Perhaps this post is a dream. Perhaps I am dreaming of writing a blog post about Norman Finkelstein and Michael Heller, reading, at Notre Dame, together. Well, let me clarify.
Norman Finkelstein and Michael Heller will be reading their poetry at the Notre Dame Hammes Bookstore on Wednesday, October 26, 2016, at 7:30 p.m. The reading is free and open to the public.
Finkelstein and Heller are the authors of many books of poetry and criticism on modern and contemporary poetry. The reading will celebrate new collections of poetry by the two authors. Finkelstein is Professor of English at Xavier University in Cincinnati and Heller is Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at NYU. Following the reading, Finkelstein and Heller will engage in a discussion with the audience on the subject of “Revealment and Concealment in Modern Poetry.” The title of their discussion is drawn from an essay by the Israeli poet Hayim Bialik, which is included at the end of the packet.
Norman Finkelstein is a poet, critic, and Professor of English at Xavier University, where he has taught since 1980. He has published widely in the fields of modern poetry and Jewish American literature. His most recent critical book is On Mount Vision: Forms of the Sacred in Contemporary American Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 2010); his most recent volumes of poetry are The Ratio of Reason to Magic: New and Selected Poems (Dos Madres, 2016) and the serial poem Track (Shearsman, 2012). He is currently working on a book of essays to be published by Hebrew Union College Press, tentatively titled Like a Dark Rabbi: Modern Poetry & the Jewish Literary Imagination.
Michael Heller has published over twenty volumes of poetry, essays, memoir and fiction, the latest being Dianoia, a new collection of poems published this year. Recent books include This Constellation Is A Name: Collected Poems 1965-2010, Beckmann Variations & other poems, Eschaton, Speaking the Estranged: Essays on the Work of George Oppen. Multimedia collaborations with the composer Ellen Fishman Johnson include the musical/theater work Constellations of Waking (on Walter Benjamin) and This Art Burning. Among his many awards and honors are the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Prize, a New York Foundation on the Arts Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Humanities Poet/Scholar Award and the Fund for Poetry. A collection of essays on his work, The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller: Nomad Memory, was published in 2015.
Thus the nature of this reading is revealed. Then what has been concealed? Revelation cannot exist without obscuration, just as a good cup of coffee can’t exist without bad coffees to elevate it. Come to the reading to be enlightened on a facet of modern poetry by discourse and example.