Customer Reviews

Generation

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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.

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

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.

Sharon Kraus' <Generation> is the kind of book that gets inside you and takes on a vibrant life of its own. I'm tempted to say that these poems follow in the tradition of such "Confessional" poets as Berryman or Lowell or Plath or Olds, but that's too reductive. They delve into a world of possibility, singing into the teeth of pain, and towards a landscape of survival, renewal and love. This is a fierce, tender music: poems that leave you spinning and amazed. Read <Generation> for an introduction to a new and original voice in American poetry.