An Assembly by Norman Finkelstein

Norman Finkelstein’s poems in An Assembly are in response and integral with the ground-breaking work of the visionary architect Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language. As the poet tells us in his introduction to An Assembly, he realized he “was fulfilling Alexander’s intention in regard to the creation of a given architectural project: that is, a selection of patterns, one of infinite number of possible sequences, comes together to create a whole. But rather than a building or a park or neighborhood, my project was a poem.”

An Excerpt from the Book

Marriage Bed

The poem as an idea of rest entwined
around two bodies resting entwined
around all their time together
Always one wants to rest

About the Author

Norman Finkelstein is a poet and literary critic. His books of poetry include Restless Messengers (Georgia, 1992) and two volumes of the serial poem Track: Track (Spuyten Duyvil, 1999) and Columns: Track, Volume II (Spuyten Duyvil, 2002). The third and final volume, Powers, is forthcoming. His most recent books of criticism are Not One of Them In Place: Modern Poetry and Jewish American Identity (SUNY, 2002) and Lyrical Interference: Essays on Poetics (Spuyten Duyvil, 2004).

Finkelstein was born in New York City in 1954. He received his B.A. from Binghamton University and his Ph.D. from Emory University. He is a Professor of English at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.