To Go Into the Words: (Poets on Poetry)

To Go Into the Words is the latest book of critical prose from renowned poet and scholar of Jewish literature Norman Finkelstein. Through a rigorous examination of poets such as William Bronk, Helen Adam, and Nathaniel Mackey, the book engages the contemporary poetic fascination with transcendence through the radical delight with language. By opening up a given poem, Finkelstein seeks the “gnosis” or insight of what it contains so that other readers can understand and appreciate the works even more. Pulling from Finkelstein’s experience of writing thirteen books of poetry and six books of literary criticism, To Go Into the Words consistently rewards the reader with insights as transformative as they are well-considered and deftly mapped out. This volume opens the world of poetry to poets, scholars, and readers by showcasing “the gnosis that is to be found in modern poetry.”

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction William Bronk Helen Adam Ronald Johnson Michael Palmer Nathaniel Mackey Paul Bray Lawrence Joseph Total Midrash Secular Jewish Culture and Its Radical Poetic Discontents The Master of Turning

About the Author :
Norman Finkelstein is the author of fourteen books of poetry and six books of criticism. His most recent critical work is Like a Dark Rabbi: Modern Poetry and the Jewish Literary Imagination (Hebrew Union College Press, 2019); recent volumes of poetry include In a Broken Star (Dos Madres Press, 2021) and Further Adventures (Dos Madres Press, 2023). He writes and edits the poetry review blog Restless Messengers (https://www.poetryinreview.com/). He is Professor Emeritus of English at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he taught for forty years.

Review :
“For decades, Norman Finkelstein has mined the deep interiority of fellow poets for whom writing extends beyond creative expression and cultural commentary into the realm of the spirit. In To Go into the Words, he continues his groundbreaking work by exploring the visionary poetics of writers as varied as Helen Adam, Michael Palmer, and Nathaniel Mackey. What makes this book—and Finkelstein’s work as a whole—stand out is that in chapter after chapter we see the Philosopher’s Stone being polished by someone who knows that the most engaging criticism is, in fact, a form of celebration.” “Finkelstein, one of our most perceptive poet-critics, gives us masterful readings of important contemporary poets in essays that integrate his decades-long conversation with their work. The last sections examine the gnostic impulse in poetry and commentary of secular Jewish poets, including Finkelstein himself, that leads them, through language, to ‘circle around some. . . absent center which still has compelling power.’” “We approach truth, said Gershom Scholem, not by systems but by commentary. In these essays on an array of poets ranging from William Bronk to Nathaniel Mackey, Norman Finkelstein provides commentary informed by a host of systems—deconstruction, the New Criticism, Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxian materialism, and more. Standing above them all is the idea of gnosis, the quest for insight into who we are and who we might become. And, in Finkelstein’s comments on midrash, we find the best commentary yet on Finkelstein’s own poetry. Open this book and open the world.” “Norman Finkelstein does not exaggerate the scope of his criticism when he defines it as ‘part close reading, part psychoanalysis, part historicism, and 100 percent mystical analysis’—the writing collected here has all those elements and much more. His lucidity and erudition are accompanied by an inspiring openness of spirit—as he considers such poets as William Bronk, Helen Adam, Ronald Johnson, Nathaniel Mackey, and Lawrence Joseph, he gives us a companionate sense of his own developing involvement with their work. These are passionately engaging, fantastically nuanced readings, equally attuned to the circadian rhythms of Johnson, the ghostly ballads of Adam, Mackey’s unfolding mythos, and Joseph’s vision of contemporary catastrophe. His sense of how poets work and why it matters—enriched by explorations of the midrashic traditions of Jewish thought and the competing claims of experiment and tradition—provide uncommon excitement.” "[To Go Into the Words] has something of an "occasional" feel--most of the chapters on specific poets compile two or more then-contemporaneous reviews of their latest books--but instead of coming across as partial or haphazard, the structure communicates powerfully both the consistencies and the developments in Finkelstein's interests and tastes over time."