Bitter Angel

by Amy Gerstler

Overview

A reissuing of Bitter Angel, poems by Amy Gerstler.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780887482311
Publisher:	Carnegie-Mellon University Press
Publication date:	10/01/1997
Series:	Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary Series: Poetry
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.28(d)

About the Author

AMY GERSTLER lives in Los Angeles. In addition to Bitter Angel which was published by North Point Press (1990), and was awarded the National Book Critic’s Circle Award for poetry in 1991, her collections of poems include The True Bride (Lapis Press, 1986), Primitive Man (Hanuman Books, 1987), Nerve Storm (Penguin, 1993), and Crown of Weeds (Penguin, 1997). She has taught English and creative writing at Otis Art Institute, Art Center College of Design, UCLA extension, and the University of California at Irvine.

Table of Contents

Siren
Clairvoyance
Wish in a War Zone
Seesaw
Doubt
The Unforeseen
Shrine
Rising Up
Nature in Literature
Ember Days
In Perpetual Spring
Saints
Innocence
The Soul Looks Down on the Body
A Father at His Son’s Baptism
Lucky You
Lifelong Dialogue
Early Hour
How to Hypnotize
Direct Address
Dispersion
Approach
Earshot
A Sleepwalker’s Monologue
The Ice Age
Pillow Talk
Slowly I Open My Eyes
War Criminal
An Unexpected Adventure
Della’s Modesty
Figuren
Morning, Noon, and Night
Sculpture / The Impatience of Youth
Christmas
Sexual Monotony
The Sexuality of Objects
Housebound
The Malice of Objects
Your Life
Marriage
Bzzzzzzz
Where Shall I Be Tonight?
Difficulty at the Beginning
Fall
Russian Dusk
Russian Lullaby
Astronomy
Lightness
Often
A Love Poem
Before Sex
Bitter Angel
Overcome
The Nature of Suffering

Editorial Reviews

Like the clairvoyant speaker in one of the many dramatic monologues in this imaginative collection, Gerstler (True Bride ) seems to have been ``born without immunity / to this din in the air: / the sad humming of the long lost.'' Her characters inhabit the fringes of society: they are saints (``the more neurotic, unattractive / and accident-prone, the better''), homeless men, a sleepwalker and a hypnotist, and the ``bitter angel'' of the title poem, who unceremoniously appears in a ``tinny, nickel-and-dime light.'' Innocents all, these would-be seers bear the burden of a hypersensitivity to the world around them and, because of it, share a kind of grace. For the poet, redemption seems to lie in the essential resilience of humanity, and in the belief in an elusive, Edenic landscape where ``for every hurt / there is a leaf to cure it.'' Gerstler balances classical allusion with bold experimentation in voice, form and content, creating a tension that gives her work an urgent, honest edge. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly