Christmas Show (Barnard New Women Poets Series) [Paperback]

Harriet Levin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 1997 | Series: Barnard New Women Poets Series

Harriet Levin is a wonderfully courageous and exacting poet. . . . [Her] poems will attract many readers. —from the Introduction by Eavan Boland

Beginning with the stunning title poem about her younger sister's brutal rape, Harriet Levin juxtaposes the ordinary with the terrible in this powerful collection.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Levin is one of a group of emerging female poets in their late thirties who "tell the story of their nation through the lens of their sexuality," according to Eavan Boland's preface to this prize-winning 1996 collection. (Levin is the latest of several noteworthy writers to be introduced by Barnard's New Women Poets competition.) Contemporaries will recognize the signposts of this particular coming-of-age: sexual violence, drugs, and family difficulties in a world that had barely begun to acknowledge the existence of these problems among the middle class. The title poem describes a sister's rape, which occurs while the speaker is off seeing the Rockettes perform the Christmas show at Rockefeller Center. Others depict a brazen passivity that begins in adolescence: "I'm still as lost as I was in those days,/ hitch-hiking on the Schuylkill with Linda/ on the way to her shrink appointment." While her short lines can degenerate into prosy explanation, one impressive piece, "French Movie," expands the line length and the point of view into a moving piece on divorce. Recommended for all contemporary poetry collections.?Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

If, as Housman once claimed, poetry is that which makes your hair stand on end as you read it, then Harriet Levin's The Christmas Show is poetry. . . . Her poems call to something deep within us. In truth they haunt us with their very human witness. —Paul Mariani, author of The Great Wheel

"Early in her powerful new book, The Christmas Show, Harriet Levin, with stunning tenderness, says about the long-term damage caused by the horrifying rape of her sister: 'But this / is how my life is different from my sister's, / I have not been forced to struggle for it.' But she is wrong. She has struggled honorably with her sister's pain and the pain of others, and out of her struggle she has brought this passionate and eloquent book." —Andrew Hudgins, author of The Glass Hammer: A Southern Childhood

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; First edition. edition (May 31, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807068373
• ISBN-13: 978-0807068373
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.3 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,603,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deeply moving book that I turn to again and again., April 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Christmas Show (Barnard New Women Poets Series) (Paperback)

This book has meant more to me than any book of poetry I have read in a very long time. Harriet Levin writes poems that I can relate to, that move me, that help me to reflect on my own life. She captures the conflicts and tensions of adolescence, family relationships, and love. When you read these poems you will hear her lines echoing in your head for days. You will want to read this beautiful and powerful book again and again.