From Publishers Weekly
In the title poem here, Sarah, not Abraham, is commanded by God to sacrifice their son. She refuses "in a soft voice, a speech / the canon does not record." She searches for Ishmael, telling Isaac, " 'You must know your brother / now, or you will see your own face looking back / the day you're at each other's throats.' " Modern political strife might have been avoided had women been in control, Wilner implies. Seeking meaningful relation of past to present, Wilner ( Shekhinah ) produces feminist reworkings of history (drawing from fairy tales, mythology and the Old Testament) as well as more intimate poems dedicated to friends and other poets. Too many poems tend toward abstraction, lacking a focused philosophy. Unlikely juxtapositions (such as Sleeping Beauty with Treblinka) are provocative but unsuccessfully resolved. A tendency toward romanticism and overstatement is well- contained in the historical pieces but mars the more personal works.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
The American Sublime: Robert Penn Warren
The Anabasis Of Kore
As Far As It Goes, And Back
The Autumn Of The Poets
Beauty And The Beast
Classical Proportions Of The Heart
Coda, Overture
Colloquy With Medea
Conversation With A Japanese Student
Desert Parable
Gaijin Lament
Going The Rounds
The Green Connection
Having Eaten Of The Tree Of Knowledge
He Was The Whitest White Man I Had Ever Met
High Noon At Los Alamos
Homage To The River
Infection In The Ear
Into The Distance Where All Things Reverse And Touch
It's A Boy
It's Not Cold Here
The Last Man
Looking Back At Yeats
Midway The Journey Of This Life
Minor Epic
Nandin's Tail
'never Apologize For Poetry'
On The Place Of Theory In An Obsolete Poetics
Postscript
Reading The Bible Backwards
Sarah's Choice
Still Waters
Sunset On The Pembrokeshire Cliff Path
A Tale That's Best For Winter
There Are Such Mornings
Time Out Of Mind
The Towers Of Silence
Tucson Gardens
Two Pairs Of Eyes
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Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
