To Cut Is To Heal: A Critical Companion To Michael S. Harper's Debridement

by Ben Lerner (Editor)

Cultural Writing. Literary Criticism. African American Studies. Ben Lerner interviews the poet Michael S. Harper about his important book on the American experience, DEBRIDEMENT(now available for the first time in its intended format). In addition, Herman Beavers, Alison Bundy, Deborah Murphy and Scott Saul contribute thoughtful and provocative essays on Harper's major contributions to the artistic, political and social discourse."In my experience, most history is unwritten, particularly the history about blacks in America, and its traduction is a continuous minefield of delusion and denial, from slavery, to the African slave trade, to "Reconstruction," and the compromises inherent in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. So as an American writer you had better have your own sense of history if you are going to be rooted in any kind of truth as you see it" - Michael S. Harper, interviewed by Ben Lerner.

81 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Ben Lerner is an American poet, novelist, and critic. He was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of fifty-two sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures. In 2004, Library Journal named it one of the year's twelve best books of poetry. The Lichtenberg Figures appeared in a German translation in 2010, for which it received the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie" in 2011, making Lerner the first American to receive this honor.

Born and raised in Topeka, which figures in each of his books of poetry, Lerner is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School where he was a standout in debate and forensics. At Brown University he earned a B.A. in Political Theory and an MFA in Poetry. He traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain in 2003 where he wrote his second book, Angle of Yaw, which was published in 2006 and was subsequently named a finalist for the National Book Award, and was selected by Brian Foley as one of the "25 important books of poetry of the 00s (2000-2009)". Lerner's third full-length poetry collection, Mean Free Path, was published in 2010.

Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, was published by Coffee House Press in August 2011. It was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and New York Magazine, among other periodicals. It won the Believer Book Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for "first fiction" and the New York Public Library's Young Lions prize.

In 2008 Lerner began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British academic publication. He has taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.

Lerner's mother is the well-known psychologist Harriet Lerner.