Leyla J. Mercado, Asst. Social Media Editor
On April 15, Manhattan University hosted a new Major Author Reading Series (MARS) event in Hayden 100, where Jason Schneiderman, a professor and poet took the stage to read some poems from his most recent work, “Self Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire.” Schneiderman has taught creative writing and has lectured on poetry for over 20 years.
Before the event commenced, Melinda Wilson, Ph.D, adjunct professor of English and director of the Center for Academic Success, took to the stage to introduce Schneiderman.
“I have the amazing opportunity tonight to introduce a poet whom I think of as a friend, but also a literary role model, and I’ll explain why,” Wilson said. “In fact, I’m proud to call myself a Jason Schneiderman fan girl. In his newest collection, “Self Portrait of Icarus as a Country on fire,” he boldly tackles some of life’s largest and most daunting questions — questions of personal identity, his Jewish heritage, questions about matters of the heart and questions surrounding the polemical politics of our time.”
Schneiderman is the author of five poetry collections, and most recently, “Self Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire,” published by Red Hen Press in 2024, serving as a poetry collection that navigates different themes of life with gracious wording.
Before reading aloud his poetry, he went on to discuss the insight he’s gained throughout his professional and personal endeavors.
“Life in the age of digital communication has come to feel unrehearsed to me, or to be more precise, life has come to feel like a play that is under-rehearsed in the days where I wanted to be an actor, because I wanted more than anything to escape the confines of my life,” Schneiderman said. “Why bother going to the Guggenheim or the MoMA, there are sidewalks and card tables with artists setting up their art…”
Schneiderman started by reading the seventh poem in the book, “Catastrophist.”
“Your heart doesn’t have to break every day, it’s okay if sometimes trees are just trees, and all the leaves on the ground look exactly like all the other leaves you’ve already seen in your lifelong life if some days you don’t even bother to look closely at the flowers as you keep on walking towards wherever you were going…” Schneiderman recited.
After concluding the poem, Schneiderman went on to share other poems with those before him, providing the audience with a look into both his creative process and personal experiences behind his work.
When asked how he maintains the privacy of his work while allowing himself to be so vulnerable, he provided a glimpse into what exactly that looks like during his creative process.
“One of the things I like about the poem is that because it’s such a shaped object, I have a lot of control over the self-presentation, and so a lot of the time what seems kind of like very raw and vulnerable is actually very carefully shaved,” Schneiderman said. “So I have a really strong awareness of what that looks like.”
Heidi Laudien, Ph.D., associate professor of English at MU, went on to share the impact his work had on her and her classes, as she has taught some of Schneiderman’s work.
“Prior to you coming here, I’m going to admit that I did not know much of your poetry,” Laudien said. “Then I started looking into your work, and I stumbled upon [your poem] ‘Vocabulary,’ and I shared it with my classes, and they actually loved it. I have to thank you for this idea that discovery is always tamed with sorrow, and the fact that you go on to say that you’ve been living without something — we try to learn when we’re young because we don’t want to regret what we don’t know.”