Generation [Paperback]

Sharon Kraus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

Generation maps the survival of a traumatic childhood. Kraus masters the toxic fall-out of abusive experiences by rendering them fiercely meaningful, almost as a dance or a biblical drama. It is an American life more terrible than we are accustomed to seeing, but one that reveals unexpected complexity in the world of K-marts and bowling alleys, a vision that tolerates contradictions that will never be resolved.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"For most, pain is a feeling one spends effort to prevent or deny: from the broken leg to the broken promise. But if one is determined to feel deeply, all emotions must register. In this collection, Sharon Kraus invites us to experience deeply poems where love is as excruciating as the wound." -- Kimiko Hahn

"Sensual, passionate, earthly and unearthly together, Sharon Kraus' work brings a fierce grief up into the sane daylight of her words. The most heartbreaking poems in Generation are the childhood poems, but the others reflect that childhood's fire: the book is 'homemade,' and it has a rare necessity about it, and gallantry." -- Jean Valentine

"These poems are the difficult children of McCarriston's Eva-Mary and Old's Satan Says. Raw, rangy, incantatory creatures who sing of the dark side of the human family, of survival and what comes after." -- Dorianne Laux

The Address
Afterlife
At The Open-air Cafe A Friend
The Caretaker
The Coroner's Assistant
The Cup
The Dazzle
The Fence
Finally
The First Morning With Him
Flight Delayed By Fog
Geniture
The Gesture
The Girls' Home
Kaddish
The Labor
Loving My Mother
The Maker
Making Dinner, Thursday Night
The Message Of My Grandmother's Death
My Mother Bathing
On The Afternoon After The Brakes Fail
Paradise
A Pardon
Penance
The Relic
Rubbing My Father's Back
The Scar
The Sign
That Which Is Palpable
To The Day
Transgressor
The Traveler
The Visit
What I Could Not Save
What If
What The Door Gives Onto
When They Named Me
Wish-shopping
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Alice James Books (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882295145
• ISBN-13: 978-1882295142
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,718,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and transformative poetry--, December 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Generation (Paperback)

I read this book of poems cover to cover in one sitting^Ösomething I haven't felt compelled to do for a long time. Nothing was obscure; nothing false. It was as if I couldn't get enough of Ms. Kraus and the way she faces down her past with the fiercely bright light of her intelligence and the resilience of her heart. Generation draws you into the interior life of its author and holds you as transfixed as she in the sometimes painful echoes of her childhood. But so keenly observed and recalled are those events that we want to be there at the end to stand with her in the transformative power of her words. I look forward to the next book of poems from this remarkable writer.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing Poems, June 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Generation (Paperback)

I judged this book by its cover--a photo of a Kiki Smith installation--and bought it. I haven't read poems like this since Sharon Olds' <The Dead and the Living.> This is emotion recollected in anything but tranquillity, and yet the harrowing images are never gratuitous...are always compelling and original. Blew me away

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, transformative words, December 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Generation (Paperback)

I read this book of poems cover to cover in one sitting--something I haven't felt compelled to do for a long time. Nothing was obscure, nothing false. It was as if I couldn't get enough of Ms. Kraus and the way she faces down her past. "Generation" draws us into the interior life of its author and holds us as transfixed as she in the sometimes painful echoes of her childhood. But so keenly observed and recalled are those events that we want to be there at the end to stand with her in the transformative power of her words. I look forward to the next book of poems from this remarkable writer.