Publisher's Synopsis
The core of this book is a series of essays, written around the turn of the century, that consider the nature and place of poetry, what it is and what it could be, what we should expect from it and what it wants from us. These essays spring from a hope that poets could regroup, resist their marginalization and thereby help to re-center society.
This book is divided into four parts. The first part meditates on the situation of poetry with respect to science and technology on the one hand, and Judaism on the other. The second part, Rethinking Literary History, contemplates a number of works that have helped to shape the Western literary mentality and its sporadic dialogue with Judaism. This section begins with the Divine Comedy and ends with a tribute to Paul Celan as the final actor in a tragic drama from which conclusions can be drawn. The third and title section of the book focuses on the needed changes in practice--poetical, critical, and even educational, since to a poet the production of a verbal posterity is a matter of burning interest. Since it seemed inappropriate to discuss poetry in its absence, the fourth section consists of poems bearing on the topics discussed, and employing poetry as a language of thought.
