A Face in the Crowd

Ruth Holzer is one of my favorite unknown poets (many arebetter than the better knowns). The proof is here in this double dozen of ghazals, a foreign form that is devilishly difficult tomake work in English. She does it and that is high praise.

—Bradley R. Strahan, former Poetry Professor, Georgetown University

A Face in the Crowd, Holzer’s latest collection, is made up oftwenty-four ghazals, a tough form for American English, but Holzer pulls it off. From “Workshop,” where she examines someof the pitfalls: “In Farsi and Urdu, tongues of the original, / coupletsrhyme smoothly. They’re forced in your ghazal”; to Paris, the Pont Neuf,and the Hotel Quiétude; Holzer has fun with this form. But she also givesus some sharp-eyed social commentary: “Dark-eyed men scowled throughtheir beards, / despising a world that guzzled gas.” Throughout, the book takes us on a journey, and we are happy to come along for the ride.

—Barbara Crooker, author of The Book of Kells (Cascade Books) andSome Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Poetry Press)

In these ghazals, Holzer covers a wide array of topics from poems of place tobaseball, including an appreciative nod to drag queens in “The Jewel Box.” Whileadhering to the traditional form, her poems are not traditional in subject. From the opening humor of “Workshopped” to the family pathos of a father’s funeral in“Service,” much emotional, geographic and imaginative ground is covered. Theseare at once highly introspective and far-seeing pieces, cleverly conceived, in whichthe repeated rhymes serve to emphasize meanings and the poet’s name in each finalcouplet calls the reader to a closer sense of intimacy.

—Kathe L. Palka, poet, and editor of tinywords.com