Dr. Finkelstein gives his thanks to Rabbi Sissy Coren, who graciously hosted his visit, to Nancy Klein, who arranged for his invitation, and to Dos Madres Press, for posting the lectures at their website.

– Nathaniel Mackey

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“The poems in Scribe are written, as the poet writing them tells us, in the voices of a ’scribe turned into a scribe’… a poet who feels the shapes with which his poems are to be assembled and chanted, who composes in invented perfection the deepest recordings of the most deeply human… a scribe inscribing our most sacred truths. …. Scribe is a masterpiece by a master poet….” Lawrence Joseph

An Excerpt

THE RELEASE

Over the border you look with longing
until one day there is only longing
waiting to be fulfilled.

You drive and drive in love’s dominion,
hardly thinking you will meet with danger
forgotten and yet foretold.

There are static streams in a fluid world,
measured lines where the meadows curl
in upon themselves like prayer.

There is weather, and the wether threatens;
there are figures, and the figures beckon
to a place of perfect rest.

The lovers rise up from the leaves around you
and their kisses are the sound of leaves around you
and their kisses are leaves.

About the Author

Norman 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, where he has lived since 1980. His books of poetry include Restless Messengers (Georgia, 1992), Passing Over (Marsh Hawk, 2007), and the three-volume serial poem Track: Track (Spuyten Duyvil, 1999), Columns (Spuyten Duyvil, 2002), and Powers (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005). He has also written extensively about modern and post-modern poetry, and about Jewish literature. His books of criticism include Not One of Them In Place: Modern Poetry and Jewish American Identity (SUNY, 2002) and Lyrical Interference: Essays on Poetics (Spuyten Duyvil, 2004). On Mt. Vision: Forms of the Sacred in Contemporary American Poetry will be published by the University of Iowa Press in 2010.

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.