Do Old Testament poetry and narrative, wisdom-writing and prophecy work on us in the same way as do nonbiblical literary texts? Competent readers over the centuries have arrived at conflicting answers to this question. Some (from Longinus on) have maintained that biblical books offer examples of supreme literary art; others have passionately rejected this approach, insisting that beauty and pleasure are not the Bible's business. Poetry with a Purpose argues that, paradoxically, both views are right. Biblical poetics is marked by an unusual tension between aesthetic and nonaesthetic (even anti-aesthetic) modes of discourse. To understand this dialectic is to understand something quite fundamental about biblical texts and, more particularly, about the nature of the contract that governs their reading. The text summons the reader to respond to a familiar form but at the same instant undermines that response, deconstructs that form. The book of Ester, for example, displays the conventions of the Persian epic tradition, but its style is subtly challenged by the text itself. Similarly, the book of Job might seem to conform to the classical concept of tragedy but ultimately presents a uniquely biblical version of the form. While the prophets use the language of myth, they will often explode or "demythologize" their own language, affirming purposed at variance with the world of myth. Harold Fisch applies his remarkably fruitful thesis to a number of biblical texts and modes, among them biblical pastoral, the Song of Songs, Psalms, Hosea, and Ecclesiastes. Equally at home in biblical studies and in general literature and theory, the author has produced a highly original work of unusual range and scholarship.

, 54 and 64 pages, other ISBN 1852242957, both volumes signed by the author on the title page

Dan Miron's erudite and rich essay chronicles and analyzes the rise and fall of the prophetic poem in modern Hebrew literature. While focusing on H. N. Bialik's contribution to the rise and decline of the prophetic poem, Miron analyzes the historical, literary, and artistic factors influencing the fate of the prophetic poem from its ascendancy during the period of Hebrew Romanticism of the late 1890s and early 1900s to its decline in the post-World War I era and its eventual demise with the rise of the new poetics and the establishment of the State of Israel. In addition to Bialik, Miron discusses the works of Avraham Mapu, M.L. Lilienblum, Issac Irter, Shaul Tchernikhovsky, A. Shlonsky, U. Z. Greenberg, Yonatan Ratosh, Haim Gouri, and Amir Gilboa, among others.

"Michael Hamburger's fifth collection since the publication of Collected Poems 1941-1994 gathers his poems written during 2004-2006, a productive period in which he has set aside translation work to concentrate on his own poetry. His intimate knowledge of the English landscape and wildlife underpins his meditations on mortality and the passing of time in these subtle and compelling poems"--Publisher.

"Poetry. Samuel Menashe "compresses thought into language intense and clear as diamonds"--Stephen Spender, New York Review of Books. Described by Donald Davie in the New Statesman as a "testcase for readers and a challenge to writers," Menashe's poetry has been enthusiastically reviewed in some of the most prestigious journals in the English-speaking world and praised by critics and poets as various and distinguished as Robert Graves, Kathleen Raine, Austin Clarke, Hugh Kenner, Calvin Bedient, Derek Mahon, Dana Gionia, and Barry Ahearn." --Amazon.com.

Since the publication of his marvelous debut volume, Anxious Latitudes, Ralph Angel has been admired by readers of contemporary poetry for the extraordinary abstract lyricism of his poems. There is a superb grace, a speculative intelligence, and a wry philosophical wisdom to Ralph Angel's poetry. There are few poets so accomplished at creating an elegant yet innovative and provocative voice. His poetic phrasings recall the startling and original jazz voicings of a whole generation of great musicians, from Billie Holiday to Miles Davis, and it is within this profoundly American tradition of the voice of the outsider that his poetry continues to resonate. Now, in Ralph Angel's new collection, Neither World, we find ourselves again in the presence of poetry that will move us ever closer to a new and renewed promise of the American sublime.

Poems consider spring, nature, childhood, the past, war, America, dreams, Russia, food, women, poetry, the moon, and the mind

When King Philip VI expelled the Jews in 1306, some 100,000 men, women, and children were driven from royal France into the neighboring lands of Spain, Provence, Italy, and North Africa. The great expulsion of 1306 was arguably one of the most traumatic moments of medieval Jewish history and would prove to be the harbinger of a series of recalls and expulsions, local and general, culminating in King Charles VI's expulsion decree of 1394. Despite the upheavals of the fourteenth century, the literary productivity of Jews was astonishing. Yet there are few direct references to the catastrophic events of 1306, even in Jewish liturgical and historiographic texts, where one would expect to find them. In No Place of Rest , Susan Einbinder coaxes out the literary traces of this traumatic expulsion. Why did the memory of this proud and vibrant Jewish community fade from historical memory? Where do its remnants reside among later communities and readers? From the lyrics of the supposed "Jewish troubadour" Isaac HaGorni to medical texts and astronomical charts, Einbinder studies a range of writings she reveals to be commemorative. Her careful readings uncover the ways in which medieval Jews asserted their identity in exile and, perhaps more important, helped to preserve or efface their history.

Roger Nash has the ability to discover the magical qualities of ordinary objects and actions. In Night Flying, his third collection of poems, things are not always what they seem. Women become windows, a paddle "recovers slowly from the numbness of its wooden limb," deep lake water is "a suddenly dilated passive black pupil." These lyrical poems portray a world where inanimate objects are given life, and where the barriers between life and death are sometimes imperceptible.

"Measured but warm, this work draws you in; it is another success among her many titles."--"Library Journal" In her fifteenth collection, Maxine Kumin meditates on the social consequences of such events as the bicentennial of the Civil War, and looks to poets writing from circumstances vastly different from her own. With death the central theme, poems of the body and praise songs for beloved animals explore how memory consoles and haunts.

Selected interviews and essays of Marjorie Perloff, a well-known critic.