Letter From a Young Poet - Softcover

Plutzik, Hyam

3.5

12 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0991327179 ISBN 13: 9780991327171

Publisher: Books & Books Press, 2016

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Written on the eve of America’s entry into World War II, this remarkable Letter From a Young Poet discloses a young Jewish American man’s spiritual and literary odyssey through rural Connecticut and urban Brooklyn during the turbulent 1930s. In a finely wrought first-person narrative, young Plutzik tells his mentor, what it means for a poet to live an authentic life in the modern world. Like Joyce and Rilke before him, Plutzik ultimately strikes out on a path that can be blessed both by his literary muses and by his ancestral voices. Letter From a Young Poet can be described as an early example of Holocaust literature for the way Plutzik challenges the growing menace of Nazism that he views looming from afar.

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About the Author:

Hyam Plutzik (1911-1962) was the author of three poetry books, all finalists for the Pulitzer Prize: Aspects of Proteus (1949), Apples from Shinar (1959, reprinted 2011), and Horatio (1961). His Collected Poems were published in 1987, with an introduction by Anthony Hecht. At the time of his death, Plutzik was John H. Deane Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry at the University of Rochester, which established the Plutzik Memorial Poetry Series and for whom the Plutzik Library for Contemporary Writing is named.

Review:

Gerald Stern, one of the greatest living American poets, and author of twenty collections of poetry and four books of essays. After reading, Letter to a Young Poet, Stern called it another "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," but a portrait which in its accuracy--again, honesty--is as original, unique, and every bit as wise as Joyce's. It reminds me of Walt Whitman's lines: "It is time to explain myself; let us stand up." geraldstern2003@yahoo.com Dr. Asher Milbauer, Director of Graduate Studies in Literature, and Founder/Director of the Exile Studies Program at Florida International University. Asher.Milbauer@fiu.edu Edward Moran (Panel Host) wrote the biographical and contextual information for Letter from a Young Poet. He will be a US visiting scholar on a project in England, in summer 2016, presenting on Hyam Plutzik’s legacy as a soldier poet who was stationed there in Norwich, UK, during World War II. Moran was also literary advisor for Oscar-nominated filmmaker Christine Choy’s documentary, Hyam Plutzik: American Poet (2006). Emoran8688@gmail.com

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