Pierced by a Ray of Sun: Poems About the Times We Feel Alone

A collection of poems ranging from ancient to modern times and encompassing several different cultures follows themes of young people who have felt misunderstood or alienated by an uncaring adult world, their communities, or their time periods

Grade 7 Up?Gordon's anthologies, regardless of their overriding themes (love in Under All Silences, [1987], the nature of poetry in Peeling the Onion [1993, both HarperCollins]), are fresh, surprising, and satisfying. The poems range over time and cultures, yet the poets' voices reach deep into modern readers' hearts. Each of the 73 selections here expresses the often inexpressible sense of loss and loneliness that haunts us all. To be born is to be separate (Natalie Robbins's "Birth Elegy VI": "I've learned something:/nothing is fair, but/you can't change the rules"); and to know someone or something leads ultimately to separation. Robert Cording writes of a student who died of AIDS: "...Each darkening bruise precise as a writer's word/Saying, at last, who you were?exactly/And to anyone who would listen." To read this collection is to be reminded, keenly, of the common humanity of our sense of isolation. This book is a great gift, a response to the proverb Gordon includes: "We are lonely.../until we find ourselves."?Kathleen Whalin, Greenwich Country Day School, CT
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 7-12. "Am I the only person on Earth?" This question begins Gordon's very brief, on-target note to her readers and sets the stage for a superb compilation of poems that crosses the world's cultures and eras. "You ask me what / the word alienation means," says Italian Giovanni Giudici; Yevgeny Yevtushenko speaks of envying "a boy / who will achieve far more / than I" ; May Sarton asks, "Must we lose what we love / To know how much we loved it?" Joan Aiken and Cynthia Rylant are represented along with Emily Dickinson and Adrienne Rich; Paul Simon ("I Am a Rock" ) as well as John Keats, Rainer Maria Rilke, Carl Sandburg, and other poets, many in translation from a variety of Eastern and Western languages. The organization of the selections is noteworthy, not only allowing readers to segue smoothly from poem to poem, but also inviting them to sample at random; topics range from the timeless to the timely, emotions from hope to despair. Not since Under All Silences: Shades of Love (1987) has Gordon produced such a YA-directed work; the collection will speak with immediacy to YAs of all ages. Sally Estes