Description: This collection is an in-depth exploration of a central contemporary American poet with links to many key literary movements. The book provides a sweeping intellectual survey of modernism, postmodernism, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century American poetry.
Brief description: Eric Hoffman has been playing wargames since his father introduced him to Avalon Hill's Tactics II at the age of 8. Since then, Eric has never met a set of rules he didn't tinker with or add to. Eric also loves other tabletop adventure games and RPGs and began publishing his works in 2014. He has written and designed for Stormlord Publishing, Castellan Publishing, Small Niche Games, and Fire Ruby Designs. Eric lives in Maryland with his indulgent wife, two amazingly talented daughters, and a lazy beagle.
Review Quotes:
"[This book] is an impressive and seminal body of original scholarship and highly recommended for academic library [and] Literary Studies in general, and Michael Heller supplemental studies lists in particular." --Midwest Book Review
"In The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller, Burt Kimmelman and Jon Curley have assembled a formidable chorus of voices to sing a love song, one of undeniable substance.... Jon Curley, Burt Kimmelman and their contributors offer a compelling assessment of Michael Heller's importance as a poet, but also of poetry as a way of repairing a "defanged" aesthetic. It is a moving tribute to the man, and the mission." --American Book Review "Over the past half century, Michael Heller has quietly but emphatically established himself as one of the most masterful poets of a post-Objectivist tradition--indeed, as one of the most thoughtful, lyrical, and philosophically profound of contemporary American poets. In major works of memoir and criticism, he has sensitively unravelled the nomadic origins of cultural and personal identity; in his poems he has limned a glittering constellation of powerful and emotionally resonant meditations on what it means to be Jewish, what it means to be American, what it means to be human. The essays in Jon Curley and Burt Kimmelman's comprehensive and well-edited collection are an excellent introduction and an essential companion to Heller's poetic achievement." --Mark Scroggins, Florida Atlantic University, author of The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky "Michael Heller's work is richly deserving of the intricate seriousness with which it is read in the splendid essays gathered here. At last, one feels, the scale and ambition of his poetry are clearly announced, the claims of the ethical intelligence duly weighed. This volume affords a necessary and timely celebration." --Peter Nicholls, New York University, author of George Oppen and the Fate of Modernism