Michael Blumenthal a Poet and Writer in No Hurry

Michael Blumenthal - Photo with permission from - M. Blumenthal

Michael Blumenthal, educator and psychoanalyst, award winning poet and writer, was born in New Jersey and raised in the Washington Heights neighbourhood of Manhattan.  Michael graduated from Cornell Law School but after practising law for a few months realised the legal world was not exactly for him.
While moving from one job to another, Michael concentrated his energy on his passion for writing poetry. His efforts paid off. In 1980, his book of poems, Sympathetic Magic, was published and won the 'Water Mark Poets of North America First Book Prize'.

After his first collection of poems reached the bookshelves, Michael was offered a teaching job at Harvard and stayed there for eight years as a lecturer in poetry and finally as director of the Creative Writing program.
His second and third books of poems, Days We Would Rather Know and Against Romance were first published by Penguin in 1984 and 1987 respectively and reprinted recently by Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press.
Other works include Michael’s 1999 collection Dusty Angel, winner of the Isabella Gardner Prize and his seventh book of poems, And, 2009, both published by BOA Editions.



Not only a poet, Michael’s novel, Weinstock Among The Dying, Zoland Books, 1993, reprinted by Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press, 2008, presents a satirical look at academic life through Martin Weinstock, a poet protagonist, a "discontented" Harvard professor, battling with his own history and identity, who “somewhere in the middle of his life’s journey, … [loses] his way and [finds] himself Burke-Howland Lecturer in Poetry at Harvard University”.
Weinstock was awarded the Hadassah Magazine’s Ribalow Prize for best work of Jewish fiction.
Michael’s non-fiction works vary in style and topic. When History Enters the House: Essays from Central Europe, Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press, 1998, presents extensive observations on contemporary Central Europe in a collection of fifty short essays composed during his four-year position in Hungary as a Fulbright fellow.

In contrast, All My Mothers and Fathers: A Memoir, Harper Collins, 2002, describes a moving yet humorous remembrance of the writer’s youth.
To date, Michael has written seven books of poetry, a novel, a memoir and a book of essays and he often translates poetry and prose from German, French and Hungarian.
Michael eighth book of poems, No Hurry to be published soon, is a collection of poems for those aging chronologically but remaining young in spirit and outlook and for those who are still interested in pondering over life’s meaningful questions.
Michael is currently Visiting Professor of Law at The West Virginia University College of Law.
Read more about Michael and his work here.