For Instance (Paperback). This item is unavailable.For Instance (Paperback)

In a sentence, the phrase “ for instance” follows an assertion or argument, and precedes a series of examples. Eli Goldblatt gives us myriad examples unconnected to a thesis, except insofar as the thesis asserts what is. This is a world composed of bombings, wars, bad history, framed in a private space of family, garden and dreamwork (which often takes us back to all the bad histories). In a larger sense, the book is an elegy— for his dear friend Gil Ott, and for a world where fascists lose. But “ even in Barcelona, Franco won.” “ War grows” in the poet’ s mind, erupting in museums and in his son, who “ emerges into the sunlight stabbing, punching, blasting his enemies.” Words are like tattoos; they scar. The poet craves “ a language beyond all this talk, / words erupting beneath words that evict / or seduce, dominate or sell.” Goldblatt’ s book offers a public and private MRI; we do not yet have the results, so we can only hope for the best. Our best consolation may be that we have this map of one poet’ s decency and care. Susan M. Schultz

Eli Goldblatt is a professor of English at Temple University. He was born in 1952 in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up on Army posts in the U.S. and Germany. After earning his B.A. at Cornell University, he attended a year of medical school, traveled in Mexico and Central America, and taught high school for 6 years in Philadelphia. He completed a Ph.D. in English at the University of WisconsinMadison in 01/01/1990. Since moving to Temple from Villanova University in 01/01/1996, he has served as University Writing Director, codirector of the Writing Center, and Director of First Year Writing. He is the director of New City Writing, an institute focused on community literacy in North Philadelphia, and has served in 01/01/200910 as the founding director of a universitywide initiative called Community Learning Network. Through New City Writing, Temple students and faculty have participated in many projects since 01/01/1997 in the Latino and African American communities near the university. His most active current involvement is with Tree House Books, an after school literacy program near the Temple campus, and Philadelphia Public School Notebook, an investigative publication dedicated to education in the city. Goldblatt works both as a composition/literacy researcher and as a creative writer. His first research book, Round My Way: Authority and Double Consciousness in Three Urban High School Writers (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), focused on the individual writer and institutional sponsorship, but in recent years he has published on communitybased learning and literacy autobiography. He and Steve Parks coauthored the College English article “ Writing beyond the Curriculum” in 2000, and his essay “ Alinsky’ s Reveille: A CommunityOrganizing Model for NeighborhoodBased Literacy Projects” won the 2005 Ohmann Award in College English. He expands the theme in Because We Live Here: Sponsoring Literacy Beyond the College Curriculum (Hampton P 01/01/2007), which won the National Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Best Book Award in 01/01/2008. His most recent book is Writing Home: A Literacy Autobiography (S. Ill UP, 01/01/2012). His poems have appeared over the last thirty years in many small literary journals, most recently in magazines such as The Pinch, Cincinnati Review, Hambone, Paper Air, Another Chicago Magazine, Madison Review, Louisiana Literature, and Hubbub. His books of poems include Journeyman’ s Song (Coffee House, 01/01/1990), Sessions 162 (Chax Press, 01/01/1991), Speech Acts (Chax Press, 1999), and Without a Trace (Singing Horse Press, 2001). In addition, Goldblatt published two children’ s books, Leo Loves Round and Lissa and the Moon’ s Sheep, both from Harbinger House in 01/01/1990.