Pierced by a Ray of Sun: Poems about the Times We Feel Alone [Hardcover]

Ruth Gordon (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1995

Pierced By a Ray of Sun offers a collection of poems about all of us, for we all sometimes feel we are different and alone. Throughout time poets everywhere have described these feelings and have recognized them as a cost of being human and sensitive to ourselves.

Ruth Gordon has selected poetry that not only reveals the universality of sometimes feeling lonely and alienated, but also stresses, as the poet Jim Northrup writes, that people have "Toughed it out/Survived."Includes Poems By:Carl Sandburg, May Sarton, Paul Simon, Rainer Maria Rilke, John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Malka Heifetz Tussman, Bob Henry Baber, James Masao Mitsui, Jim Northrup, Dona Luongo Stein

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

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.

From Booklist

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

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 105 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers; 1st edition (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060236132
• ISBN-13: 978-0060236137
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 4.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,766,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, April 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Pierced by a Ray of Sun: Poems about the Times We Feel Alone (Hardcover)

As it happens, I was indeed alone as I read the poems in this book. A mixed bag, indeed. However, in the final analysis, there are a handful of astonishing pieces and not a true clinker in the bunch.