Michael Heller (born May 11, 1937), is an

American poet The poets listed below were either born in the United States or else published much of their poetry while living in that country. A B C D E F G H I–J K L M N O P Q * George Quasha (born 1942) R S T U–V ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

and critic. Among his many books are ''Exigent Futures'', ''In The Builded Place'', ''Wordflow'' and ''Living Root: A Memoir''. He wrote the libretto for the opera, ''Benjamin'', based on the life of

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish ...

. He is recipient of awards including the NEH Poet/Scholar grant, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (NYFA),

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

award, and The Fund for Poetry.

Overview

Heller is recognized as a leading expert on Objectivist poets, poetry, and poetics. The impetus for his continued interest in this particular group of poets began with Heller's discovery of the poetry of George Oppen (and with whom he began a correspondence in the 1960s). Today he is acknowledged by some readers and critics as a Jewish Objectivist poet in the tradition of Oppen, Charles Reznikoff, Carl Rakosi, and

Louis Zukofsky Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was an American poet. He was the primary instigator and theorist of the so-called "Objectivist" poets, a short lived collective of poets who after several decades of obscurity would reemerge a ...

. His critical book on the Objectivist poets, ''Conviction’s Net of Branches'', received the Di Castagnola Prize from the Poetry Society of America.

Life and work

Throughout his career, Michael Heller has addressed contemporary

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

movements, Jewish and post-

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

poetry, poetics, and the literary environment of contemporary poetry. His is a style and gesture seen as joining personal tone with historic incident while reflecting on such themes as the nature of language, poetry, religion, and even memory itself. Heller's interests often point to a succession of American poetry that today is, for the most part, inflected by the American experimentalism of

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

and the "make it new" of innovators such as Pound and Williams along with infusions of European

dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

, surrealism, structuralist and

post-structuralist Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...

thought. "Aspects of Poetics," an important statement by Heller on his aesthetics, appeared in

Samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

in 2001. A recent book of essays, ''Uncertain Poetries'' (2005), deals with the uncertain nature of twentieth-century poetry. In his preface to the volume, Heller refers to these pieces as "selected from nearly twenty-five years of work (and) ought to be read as something of an intellectual biography of a working poet". They address Heller's on-going dialogue and confrontation with such major figures as Williams, Pound, Stevens,

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Early life Moore was born in Kirkwood ...

, George Oppen, Robert Duncan,

Lorine Niedecker Lorine Faith Niedecker (English: pronounced Needecker) (May 12, 1903 – December 31, 1970) was an American poet. Niedecker's poetry is known for its spareness, its focus on the natural landscapes of Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest (particularly wa ...

, Lorca, Rilke, and Mallarmé, along with poets in more contemporary modernist and postmodernist lineages. Heller himself notes that: If the concepts of uncertainty, disease, and anomie embody the condition of modernity itself ---as critics have also noted--- they also animate Heller's work. Concurrently, various commentators now recognize Heller's contribution to our understanding of how, although the poet embodies the exigencies of modernity, so to the poetic act can become an active shaping force which, through the charged field of poetic language, provides the hope of meaning for both history and experience.

Selected publications

*''Accidental Center'' (Sumac Press, 1972); poetry *''Knowledge'' (1980); poetry *''Conviction's Net of Branches: Essays on the Objectivist Poets and Poetry'' (Southern Illinois University Press, 1985); criticism *''In the Builded Place'' (Coffee House Press, 1989); poetry *''Carl Rakosi: Man and Poet'' (Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, 1993); Heller is editor of this volume on the renowned Objectivist poet *''Wordflow: New and Selected Poems'' (Talisman House, 1997); poetry *''Living Root: A Memoir'' (SUNY Press, 2000); memoir of his youth in Brooklyn and Miami Beach, FL, that mixes in history regarding his family's hometown of Bialystock, Poland, and World War II *''Exigent Futures: New and Selected Poems'' (

Salt Publishing Salt Publishing is an independent publisher whose origins date back to 1990 when poet John Kinsella launched ''Salt Magazine'' in Western Australia. The journal rapidly developed an international reputation as a leading publisher of new poetry ...

, 2003); poetry: gathers together poems from four of his major collections *''Uncertain Poetries : Selected Essays on Poets, Poetry and Poetics'' (Salt Publishing, 2005); essays *''Earth and Cave'', (Loveland, OH: Dos Madres Press, 2006) *''A Look at the Door with the Hinges Off'', (Loveland, OH: Dos Madres Press, 2006) *''Speaking the Estranged: Essays on the Work of George Oppen'', (Cambridge UK:

, 2008); essay/memoir *''Eschaton'', (Jersey City, NJ: Talisman House, 2009) *''Telescope: Selected Poems'', (New York, NY: NYRB Poets, 2019)

References

External links

Interview with Heller in September 1998

at Jacket Magazine website

at Jacket Magazine website

a talk by Heller at Small Press Traffic on March 20, 1998

in January 2006

in Sugar Mule magazine website, selected poetry and biographical notes in SugarMule.com, issue #50, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Heller, Michael American male poets Living people 1937 births Objectivist poets