Adam Kirsch (born 1976) 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 in poetry, 1942) R ...

and

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

. He is on the seminar faculty of

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

's Center for American Studies, and has taught at

YIVO YIVO (, , short for ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. Estab ...

Life and career

Kirsch was born in Los Angeles in 1976. He is the son of lawyer, author, and biblical scholar

Jonathan Kirsch Jonathan Kirsch is an American attorney, writer, and columnist for the ''Los Angeles Times''. He is an author of books on religion, the Bible, and Judaism. Biography Life Kirsch earned a B.A. degree in Russian and Jewish history from the Unive ...

. He started writing poetry around the age of 14, after encountering the work of

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

: "Eliot showed me the possibility of finding in poetry a source of complex intellectual and moral interest." He graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

with a B.A. in English in 1997 and began his career as assistant literary editor for ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

''. Next he worked as the editor for Lipper Publications.Prosaic Judgments
/ref> For a while, Kirsch made his living as a freelance writer, and he has regularly written freelance articles for many different publications including ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'', ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', and ''

Poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

''.

Richard John Neuhaus Richard John Neuhaus (May 14, 1936 – January 8, 2009) was a prominent writer and Christian cleric (first in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, then the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and later the Catholic Church). Born in Canada, N ...

, writing in ''

First Things ''First Things'' (''FT'') is a journal aimed at "advanc nga religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society", focusing on theology, liturgy, history of religion, church history, culture, education, society, politics, literat ...

'', called Kirsch "a literary critic of some distinction." Writing in ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

'', John Palattella describes Kirsch as "the intellectual offspring of the New Formalists." Currently, Kirsch is a contributing editor to ''

Harvard Magazine ''Harvard Magazine'' is an independently edited magazine and separately incorporated affiliate of Harvard University. It is the only publication covering the entire university and regularly distributed to all graduates, faculty, and staff. The ...

'' and '' Tablet Magazine'' and the author of the weekly column "The Reader" on

Nextbook Nextbook is a nonprofit Jewish organization founded in 2003 by Elaine Bernstein's Keren Keshet Foundation to promote Jewish literacy and support Jewish literature, culture and ideas. The organization sponsors public lectures, commissions books o ...

. He also currently holds the position of senior editor for ''

'', the publication where he started his writing career. Over the course of his career, he has written reviews and feature articles on a diverse array of poets and novelists, including

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

H.G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

, Richard Wilbur,

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

Hart Crane Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Inspired by the Romantics and his fellow Modernists, Crane wrote highly stylized poetry, often noted for its complexity. His collection '' White Buildings'' (1926), feat ...

, and

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine ...

. He has also written articles on assorted cultural issues, including

rap music Rapping (also rhyming, flowing, spitting, emceeing, or MCing) is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and ommonlystreet vernacular". It is usually performed over a backing ...

, America and the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, the relationship between conservative politics in America and the writings of

Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which s ...

, and the importance of literary criticism. Kirsch has published two books of poems, ''The Thousand Wells'' and ''Invasions'', as well as nonfiction books on

Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a ...

and

Lionel Trilling Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...

. ''The Thousand Wells'' won The New Criterion Poetry Prize in 2002. His poems have also appeared in many magazines, including ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

'', ''

Partisan Review ''Partisan Review'' (''PR'') was a left-wing small-circulation quarterly "little magazine" dealing with literature, politics, and cultural commentary published in New York City. The magazine was launched in 1934 by the Communist Party USA–affi ...

'', '' The Formalist'', '' Harvard Review'', and ''

The New Criterion ''The New Criterion'' is a New York–based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Roger Kimball (editor and publisher) and James Panero (executive editor). It has sections for criticism of poetry ...

''. In an interview with '' Contemporary Poetry Review'', Kirsch cited

Derek Walcott Sir Derek Alton Walcott OM (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017) was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works include the Homeric epic poem '' Omeros'' (1990), which many critics view "as ...

, Glyn Maxwell, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Adam Zagajewski, Rachel Wetzsteon, Dennis O'Driscoll,

Geoffrey Hill Sir Geoffrey William Hill, Royal_Society_of_Literature#Fellowship, FRSL (18 June 1932 – 30 June 2016) was an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston Uni ...

, and

Jacqueline Osherow Jacqueline Osherow (born 1956) is an American poet, and Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah. Biography Raised in Philadelphia, Jacqueline Osherow graduated from Radcliffe College with a BA ''magna cum laude'', and from Princeton Uni ...

as his favorite contemporary poets and

Helen Vendler Helen Vendler (née Hennessy; April 30, 1933 – April 23, 2024) was an American academic, writer and literary critic. She was a professor of English language and history at Boston University, Cornell, Harvard, and other universities. Her aca ...

Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He wa ...

Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the highly controversial and countercultural literary movements w ...

, William Logan, and Robert Potts as his favorite contemporary poetry critics.

Critical response

''The Wounded Surgeon''

Kirsch's book ''The Wounded Surgeon: Confession and Transformation in Six American Poets'' was reviewed in major publications, including ''

'' and ''

''. It received generally mixed reviews. In ''Poetry'', Danielle Chapman wrote:

There's both sense and power in Kirsch's arguments. He skillfully distinguishes the poems that use life as material for poetry from those that use poetry in order to justify or condemn the poet's real-life behavior. He convinces us that the former are art while the latter are exhibitions of narcissism, self-pity, and sentimentality; that a poem succeeds, no matter how brutal or amoral it may be, as long as it retains the integrity of its artifice; that a poem fails when the poet abandons the imaginative work of completing it in order to solicit the reader's sympathy or reproach. What Kirsch doesn't convince us of is his cold-blooded bottom line, which is that if art is to be great, it often must take precedence over life, regardless of the costs.

''The New York Times Book Review'' article by the poet

David Lehman David Lehman (born June 11, 1948) is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and literary critic, and the founder and series editor for '' The Best American Poetry''. He was a writer and freelance journalist for fifteen years, writing for such pub ...

was far more negative. He characterized the book as having "a flawed thesis, a few valuable readings of poems and a mess of missed opportunities." But in a review in ''The New York Times'', critic

Michiko Kakutani is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life and family Kakutani, a Japanese Americ ...

praised the book, calling it "eloquent and very astute." She added:

Mr. Kirsch ... does a wonderfully nimble job of conveying each poet's individual achievement and the evolution of his or her style, as apprenticeship gave way to maturity, as new techniques and language were invented to accommodate new ideas and material. Writing in a manner that is at once erudite and accessible, Mr. Kirsch proves equally adept at dispensing the sort of close readings of individual poems championed by the New Critics and at explicating correspondences between a poet's life and art in a fashion that would have been anathema to the high modernists.

''The Thousand Wells''

The critic

Ken Tucker Kenneth Tucker is an American arts, music and television critic, magazine editor, and nonfiction book author. Early life and education Tucker was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. He earned a ...

wrote a highly critical review of Kirsch's first book of poetry, ''The Thousand Wells'', writing, "Steely technical skill often contradicts the tender feelings and humility invoked throughout Adam Kirsch's first poetry collection. In 'A Love Letter,' he asserts, 'all my powers, poetic, analytical,/Cannot do justice to the theme,' but it's actually the stilted rhymes ('glosses/colossus'; 'momentous /portentous') and the familiarity of images like 'love waxes and wanes,/But, like the hide-and-go-seek of the moon,/It is only hiding, never really gone' that prevent Kirsch from sustaining his meditations on romantic love, city life and religion." But ''

Booklist ''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is ...

'' gave the book a positive review, stating that the book contained no "bad" poems and that "regardless of subject and tone, these are, because of their forms, poems of wit."

''Invasions'' and ''The Modern Element''

In ''

'', the poet Carmine Starnino wrote a review of two of Kirsch's books published around the same time: ''Invasions'' (a book of poems) and ''The Modern Element'' (a book of literary criticism). In his review, Starnino focused on Kirsch's status as a poet-critic and how the role of poet-critics in America's literary culture had changed since the heyday of poet-critics in the first half of the 20th century. Regarding ''The Modern Element'', Starnino wrote that Kirsch is "an incomparable context builder, with a near-perfect nose for comparisons. . . ndis excellent at placing poets in their historical moment, aided by an ability to evoke the way the climate of a period manner can suddenly be made to pivot into the private weather of a poem."Starnino, Carmine. "The Plight of the Poet-Critic." ''Poetry''
/ref> Starnino also had mostly positive things to say regarding ''Invasions'' which he called "an advance on the 'silent, parcelled, and controlled' poems of the award-winning ''The Thousand Wells''." Startino also noted that the style and form of the poems in ''Invasions'' was heavily influenced by the work of

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...

, particularly Lowell's sonnet sequence in the book ''History''. Starnino's only criticism of the poems was that he believed that Kirsch's wording could sometimes seem antiquarian and that his strictness with regard to form could be limiting. Starnino also implied that Kirsch's commitment to strict formalism would guarantee his work a very limited audience. In ''

'', Langdon Hammer also reviewed ''Invasions'' and ''The Modern Element'', but unlike Starnino's review, Hammer's was extremely negative. First, in ''The Modern Element'', Hammer took issue with Kirsch's aesthetic literary arguments which he viewed as "narrow and formulaic." He also took issue with Kirsch's criticisms of free-verse poets like

Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

and opined that Kirsch was only skilled at criticizing those formalist poets, like Richard Wilbur and Donald Justice, who shared the same conservative approach as Kirsch uses in his own poetry, employing regular rhyme and meter. With regard to Kirsch's poetry in ''Invasions'', Hammer wrote, "Kirsch's brooding on the end of things

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

and the Iraq War] becomes as predictable as his iambic pentameter lines, which unroll smoothly without Syntax, syntactic surprises." Hammer also criticized the poems for being too "cautious and rueful" and without passion.

Other work

In a review of Kirsch's nonfiction book ''Why Trilling Matters'', William Giraldi of ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. Founded in 2008, the website is owned by IAC Inc. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief ...

'' praised the Trilling book as well as Kirsch's previous nonfiction works: Kirsch also generated controversy when writing an article for the

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

titled "Is It Time To Retire the Term 'Genocide'?" in 2023 in response to the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Kirsch's 2024 book ''On Settler Colonialism'' was published in the midst of the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

, during which the use of the term

Settler Colonialism Settler colonialism is a logic and structure of displacement by Settler, settlers, using colonial rule, over an environment for replacing it and its indigenous peoples with settlements and the society of the settlers. Settler colonialism is ...

surged, mainly in academic circles. The book noted that the vast majority of early Zionists came to Israel as refugees; Israelis have nowhere to return to, unlike settler colonialists such as the French in Algeria or Vietnam; and Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. He pointed out that settler colonialist ideology (SCI) lacks appeal to indigenous peoples, since it does not improve their situation. The book was both praised and criticized in a review published in

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

, which was dubbded "A rigorous moral reckoning falters by leaving out half of the equation."

Bibliography

Books

* * * ''The Modern Element: Essays on Contemporary Poetry'', 2008 (W. W. Norton & Company) * ''Invasions: New Poems'', 2008 (Ivan R. Dee) * ''Benjamin Disraeli'', 2008 (Schocken) * ''Why Trilling Matters'', 2011 (Yale University Press) * ''Rocket and Lightship: Essays on Literature and Ideas'', 2014 (W. W. Norton & Company) * ''The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century'', 2016 (Columbia Global Reports) * ''The People and The Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature'', 2016 (W. W. Norton & Company) *''On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice'', 2024 (W. W. Norton & Company)

Articles

* * * Reviews . * Christian Wiman. * * * *
Technology Is Taking Over English Departments: The False Promise of the Digital Humanities
" ''The New Republic''. 245 May 2, 2014. * *
Is It Time to Retire the Term 'Genocide'?
" ''The Wall Street Journal''. December 8, 2023

Book reviews

References

External links

World Affairs ''World Affairs'' is an American quarterly journal covering international relations. At one time, it was an official publication of the American Peace Society. The magazine has been published since 1837 and was re-launched in January 2008 as a ...

What Disraeli Can Teach Us
Book review of ''Benjamin Disraeli'' from ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...

''
Book review
of "Violence" by

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Global Distin ...

Kirsch author page and article archive
from ''The New York Review of Books''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirsch, Adam 1976 births Living people 20th-century American Jews American literary critics American magazine editors American male non-fiction writers American male poets The Atlantic (magazine) people Formalist poets Harvard University alumni The New Yorker critics 21st-century American poets 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American Jews