Silk and The Ragpicker's Grandson (Short Works Series) [Paperback]

Bert Stern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999 | ISBN-10: 0873760840 | ISBN-13: 978-0873760843 | Edition: 1

Poetry. Bert Stern, Milligan professor Emeritus at Wabash College in Indiana, now lives in Keene Valley, New York, with his wife, Tam Lin Neville, a poet. This volume joins two groups of poems: one about the experiences of Tam Lin Neville's great-great grandfather, who traded for silk in China in the mid-nineteeth century, the other about Bert Stern's ancestors, whose roots were is Kishinev in the province of Moldavia. Perfectbound chapbook.

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

from Silk Proem In his grandchild's gaze neat striped waistcoat and a gold watch chain beneath the open coat. Astonishing eyes "they sought one's very soul and then blessed one with kindness."

His house rich with bibelots a singing bird in black ebony box he'd bought in Paris. The box's cover, gold filigree. He pressed a button and the bird came out, in turquoise feathers, trilled prettily, and then the black lid dropped.

Product Details

• Paperback: 47 pages
• Publisher: Red Dust; 1 edition (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873760840
• ISBN-13: 978-0873760843
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,251,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "I want voices of things chattering", November 28, 1999

By 

Roger Mitchell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silk and The Ragpicker's Grandson (Short Works Series) (Paperback)

This small but powerful book of poems constructs the poet's genealogy out of parts of his and his wife's ancestry. Drawing first on an ancestor of his wife who had been a silk merchant in China in the nineteenth century, Bert Stern writes from the merchant's perspective in an epistolary manner that captures both the exotic aspects of a place strange to him at first and his down-to-earth clarity. The second sequence of poems also borrows voices from the past, this time from the author's Jewish past in Moldavia. This is a story of emigration from the terrors of the pogrom and immigration through Ellis Island to America. Between the two parts, we are given an almost mythic conjunction of two prominent "Americas." The author's ability to inhabit the minds of these pasts is a gift not often found among poets, and the poems are lit with a gentleness his characters must have passed on but did not often know. The third section, made up of two poems in Stern's own voice, are perhaps a culmination of these histories. Certainly they contain some of the best poetry in this book and more than suggest a powerful future for this generous-hearted poet.