Deborah Garrison, whose work as an editor and writer has enlivened the pages of The New Yorker for more than a decade, evokes the characters and events of her everyday life with intense feeling and, more important, conjures up the universal dilemmas and pleasures of a young woman trying to come to terms with love and work.
A Working Girl Can't Win
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Amazon.com Review
Every couple of years, some unlucky soul gets designated as the Poet for People Who Hate Poetry, and now it seems to be Deborah Garrison's turn. It's easy to see why: she gets the voice of the late 20th-century New Yorker to perfection, in all its kvetchy, melancholic glory. At times it's like hearing George Costanza channeling Emily Dickinson:
I'm never going to sleep
with Martin Amis
or anyone famous.
Garrison also tends to sidestep metaphysics in favor of more accessible subject matter. That means love (mostly unrequited) and work (mostly unbearable, particularly for a working girl in a testosterone-driven office, wearied by the appearance of yet "another alpha male-- / a man's man, a dealmaker"). No wonder Garrison seems so appealing. And no wonder her publisher has capitalized on this appeal by packaging her book in such a sleek, chic jacket. It would be a mistake, however, to write her off as one more neurotic light versifier. Her metaphoric agility can take you by surprise: note the Atlantic breeze coming "up out of the surf / like a dog gone swimming, / slagging sand and spray every which way / and making the news unreadable." So, too, can the note of resignation that undergirds so many of Garrison's vignettes-in-verse, giving even her most featherweight performances an odd, unchic intensity. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I'm never going to sleep
with Martin Amis
or anyone famous.
Garrison also tends to sidestep metaphysics in favor of more accessible subject matter. That means love (mostly unrequited) and work (mostly unbearable, particularly for a working girl in a testosterone-driven office, wearied by the appearance of yet "another alpha male-- / a man's man, a dealmaker"). No wonder Garrison seems so appealing. And no wonder her publisher has capitalized on this appeal by packaging her book in such a sleek, chic jacket. It would be a mistake, however, to write her off as one more neurotic light versifier. Her metaphoric agility can take you by surprise: note the Atlantic breeze coming "up out of the surf / like a dog gone swimming, / slagging sand and spray every which way / and making the news unreadable." So, too, can the note of resignation that undergirds so many of Garrison's vignettes-in-verse, giving even her most featherweight performances an odd, unchic intensity. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Garrison, a New York-based poet and senior editor at The New Yorker, has produced this slim volume of highly accessible poetry: the talented observations of a bright young career woman preoccupied with men, sex, clothes, domesticity, and office politics. One only wishes that Garrison would use her vivid skills with the language ("the sun's fuzzy mouth sucking the day back") to explore issues and scenery that more deeply touch the reader's soul. She's capable of gorgeous images; of peonies she writes, "I used to hate/ their furry scent, their fat cheeks packed/ with held breath, the way they'd crumple open/ later, like women in tears." And her poems ring with inner rhythms and off-rhymes, along with smug, self-confident humor: "Are her roots/ rural, right-leaning? Is she Jewish,/ self-hating? Past her sell-by date,/ or still ovulating?" Garrison entertains but shallowly. Recommended with some reservations for larger public libraries.?Judy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
underbaked and flat,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Working Girl Can't Win: And Other Poems (Hardcover)
Great idea for a collection--poems from the point of view of a female office worker. But there's not much empathy, not much risk, not much music, not much wit, not much anything here. These are above all intellectually and linguistically lazy poems which aim for irony but seldom get beyond archness. No perceptions you couldn't find in the pages of a woman's magazine or on a TV-show about working women--and not even as entertaining as any number of chick lit novels.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Check these out,
This review is from: A Working Girl Can't Win : And Other Poems (Paperback)
This is very good poetry: insightful, articulate, and very witty. Garrison is quite deft with the English language and doesn't litter her writing with clever, irrelevant tricks. She keeps her work focused and to the point. She has the snap and sting of Michael Benedikt.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Captures 30+y.o. female ambiguity,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Working Girl Can't Win: And Other Poems (Hardcover)
Read a review in Newsweek and immediately bought my copy. Rings very true to the things that I am feeling about my own life, career, and friends. I hope she publishes more of her poetry. This has also reawakened my interest in poetry, which I forgot about since the 8th grade!
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