Walt Whitman and the Making of Jewish American Poetry (Iowa Whitman Series)

This groundbreaking book, "Jewish American Poets in Dialogue with Walt Whitman," offers a comprehensive exploration of the rich tapestry of complex intersections between America's 'Bard of Democracy' and generations of significant Jewish American poets.

The author presents a genealogy of Jewish American poets in dialogue with Whitman, revealing how this lineage extends far beyond the likes of Allen Ginsberg.

Through a detailed examination of the works of Emma Lazarus, Adah Isaacs Menken, Charles Reznikoff, Karl Shapiro, Kenneth Koch, Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, Marge Piercy, Alicia Suskin Ostriker, and Gerald Stern, this book demonstrates how Whitman has been adopted by Jewish American poets as a symbol against exclusionary and anti-Semitic elements in high modernist literary culture.

The turn to Whitman serves as a mode of exploring Jewish and American identity, making this book an indispensable gift to scholars of Whitman and Jewish literature alike.