Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry

Alan Mintz. Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry. Stanford, California. Stanford University Press. 2012. isbn 9780804762939

Alan Mintz's Sanctuary in the Wilderness represents a grand undertaking of the emergence and development of Hebrew poetry in America. Only with language, the magical vehicle of human expression, is it possible to tell such a story-all at once a group story, a personal story, and a national story. Robert Graves writes in "To Juan at the Winter Solstice" that "there is one story and one story only that will prove worth your telling, whether as learned bard or gifted child." Rainer Maria Rilke tells us that objects come to us to be named; one sits and waits for the words to come. Writers and poets anywhere sit and wait for the tale to unfold. Indeed, there is one story and one story only that will prove worthy of the telling.

And so it is also with Sanctuary in the Wilderness....