Customer Reviews

Homeless Chronicles: from Abraham to Burning Man

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I loved wandering through this book of rich, many layered prose. Following is a review that says it better than I could:

HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man takes us on
a journey from the sensual, innocent stages of growing up to an end
reflection on whether "these jottings (will) see the light of day" . . .

Gerard Sarnat talks about his experience with the homeless as he
wanders "the asphalt with a toolbox of hope." He is at his best when
concrete and earthy. He describes Big Bad Bill, a dumpster diver
with "weeping ankles wrapped in weeping rags" as he searches for
"fungoid muffins, rancid tuna" from the trash. In "Irregular People:
M-W-F," written in short three line stanzas, we encounter graphically
who the poet sees on his rounds at a community clinic-" a bizarro ex-con,"
Mona Lisa who "sashays in/mustache trimmed, cig hung/ Them
shemale hormones sure work great!" and "Billie Holiday's cocoa
butter double/ demure in torn tight jeans and pink plastic sandals /
doesn't even know I exist."

Who are the homeless in this collection? They are the people of the
street obviously but also the homeless are the WW11 refugees of his
roots, the kids like himself who grew up coping with a multicultural
world of the American melting pot. In the poem, "My Odyssey, My
Iliad" we see the author far from home trying to return from the
wars and the constant battles of his professional life as a modern day
Odysseus. Here he becomes most lyrical and the cadence carries the
narrative of the poem along with it. "Polishing off today's lineup of
dopers and loners/ users and losers, screamers, moaners, schemers/
smashed shoulders and dreams."

The Homeless Chronicles is an interesting, often lyrical response to the
historical and personal passage of time, the man and the writer from
Abraham to Burning Man.

-David Fraser, editor Ascent Aspirations

NB, if you scroll down on the earlier page showing HOMELESS' cover and where
you first clicked on "customer reviews," there are three Editorial Reviews.
Below is another independent review.

HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man is a viscous kind
of cerebral punk. Sarnat, new to poetry at the age of sixty-four, is no Beatle,
not even a Rolling Stone. Akin more to a prolific Sid Vicious, the highly
educated Sarnat has emerged from the medical world and "delivering care
to the disenfranchised" with poems that span time and circumstance.

At his best Sarnat delivers a high-octane mix of history and imagery. In
"Whimperbang: Yad Vashem Revisited," Sarnat writes about touring Israel's
official memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Opening with "Heine was
right:/ when books burn, humans are destined to be next," Sarnat's poem
unfolds a series of visceral images. There are few if any songs of innocence
between these pages, though lines like "I dreamt and redreamt a binary
dream/ rooted in revenge and prayer for those up the smokestacks," spin
my head a bit and keep me tuned in to the final transition where Sarnat
emerges into the present day with social commentary coming from his
fellow tour companions: "The yeshiva bocker in side curls, skull cap,
and black coat/ whose steps we've trailed these aching hours, / mutters
something under his breath, what I take to mean, / "Enough. Let me out of
here."

From shape poems to poems that hint at spoken word to an epithalamium
which takes place at Burning Man, there is nowhere Sarnat is not willing to
go, and nothing he isn't willing to risk. And while this book is a bit X-rated,
there are some nice easy PG poems in here as well, including a favorite
called "Edward Hopper Foster Care," about the revival of both plant and
patient. By my reckoning of Sarnat's poetry, if this powerhouse doesn't
knock you off your rocker, I'm not sure what ever would.
-Cameron Scott, Sugar Mule

Quirky, brilliant and fun. Gerard Sarnat has such a phenomenally wide range of interests to inform his poetry--from Beverly hills to spirituality to the middle east to sports to popular culture. Every poem takes you for a ride.

Though neither a poet nor a critic, I can appreciate Gerard Sarnat's poetry.
What follows however is the opinion of a reviewer who is both a poet and a thoughtful and perceptive critic:

"Gerard Sarnat comes lately to poetry but arrives with deep roots. We're
immediately immersed in Gerry's ingenious transformation into Chassid
Gesundheit Sarnatzky and his universal immigrant story.

Sarnat's real journeys include a surprise encounter absolutely alone with the
Dalai Lama in the Dharamsala airport transit room; range from New Mexico
commune to namesake Sarnath to Myanmar, Machu Picchu and Burning
Man with his kids; to bridging Eurasian sides of the Bosporus, gaps with
homeless patients, and a husband and wife's weak smiles.

Gerry's crackling brilliant debut collection is richly layered, engaging and
really alive, irreverent and amusing, very strong, immensely enjoyable.
Whether bringing pizza lunch to his 94 and 97 year-old parents, holding
a daughter's newborn, or honoring sacred plants; one senses ground well
traveled-though he often takes the other fork. I'd like to know this man!"
-Joan Logghe, University of New Mexico-Los Alamos Rice among
other poetry collections

Sarnat reveals a personal and universal Diaspora. Although these poems begin with his life and family, he gives me his reader image after image to illuminate my own very different life. And he does this while never obscuring what to me makes this book magic, that sets it apart, namely, a pervading intimation of an underlying emptiness or, perhaps, fullness, upon which these images seem to float. It reminds me of Van Gogh's intensely painted objects (and brush strokes) which while blazing in their own right nevertheless seamlessly join with the other objects to create a whole. Sarnat gives us image after image building into a poem and poem upon poem building into a wholly new realization, often mystical, of our own `homeless' lives passing through this world. -William Brater

A powerful first book of poems, taking an exceptionally wide range of forms and subjects, with plainspoken charm and dense wordplay. A very promising debut for a poet of any age!

This is the first poetry I have read since college (some 40 years ago). In those days I found poetry to be torture required by sadistic professors and TAs. Gerard Sarnat's inaugural offering makes me aware that some poetry has a lot to offer, especially when capably and emotionally produced as he as done so well. Thank you for giving me a new perspective.