Passing Over by Norman Finkelstein

“After the Track trilogy, one of the most brilliant and audacious works in recent American literature, what a pleasure to discover these earlier poems by Norman Finkelstein. Lyrical, probing, and always finely wrought, there is a tenderness in this book that can break one’s heart. –Paul Auster

Finkelstein’s lyrical meditations on the religious and secular Jewish tradition not only mark him as a major voice articulating, with grace, Jewish identity, but also establish the role a venerable religion can play in the modern world. Passing Over is also of especial value in its illumination of its author’s other collections of poetry, in some of which Judaism as a theme plays a role but is not predominant, and yet which, now become obvious, are greatly steeped in this world and its way of understanding our existence.” –Burt Kimmelman

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.