Inventing Difficulty - Softcover

Greenbaum, Jessica

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1878851144 ISBN 13: 9781878851147

Publisher: Silverfish Review Press, 2000

Synopsis

Poetry. "A sinewy, vividly intelligent humanity gives to this collection its memorable voice. In one sense, Jessica Greenbaum's poems are incisively local—that Brooklyn landscape out of Whitman and Hart Crane. In another sense, however, they tell of the larger sadness and recognitions of our century. They 'design their world through love' and scrupulous observation. A first book by a poet very much to be listened to."—George Steiner

About this title

About the Author

Jessica Greenbaum's first book, INVENTING DIFFICULTY (Silverfish Review Press, 2000), won the Gerald Cable Prize. She is the poetry editor for upstreet and lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

Greenbaum inhabits a Brooklyn that is somehow both urban and earthy, a metropolis of car trouble, plumbers/ and broken typewriters. Yet in the midst of this Sisyphean world, she discovers the double life/ Within us, and everything. Sooty old Brooklyn yields up beauty in the form of rose/ and coffee shops and the grocer arranging/ his pyramid of grapefruits. The borough!s cherry trees are heavy with pink clusters dense as mattress stuffing. Even the wind is composed in green/ Van Gogh-like swirls. Again and again, Greenbaum makes poetry by engaging contraries, marrying/ acceptance and argument. She concludes this highly readable first book with five confessional poems about birth and miscarriage, path and obstacle, everything that makes this earth the right place to live, as long as we keep inventing it. Recommended for all larger poetry collections."Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, IL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Silverfish Review Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1878851144
• ISBN 13: 9781878851147
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 66