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Tiger Heron
Appearance and disguise―in a Costa Rican rainforest, a West Village repair shop, or an intimate relationship―reveal the turbulence that undergirds daily life, as families and places undergo change. In "Elegy for the Norther Flying Squirrel" and "Divers," Becker takes up the science of climate change and habitat loss. "Language that is by turns virtuosic and quiet, astonishing and accurate," writes a reviewer of Becker's 2006 collection, Domain of Perfect Affection for Jewish Book World Magazine. The challenge of "aligning loss with love" exerts a potent tension in Tiger Heron, as age comprises mortal bodies and intimacies end. A self-mocking wit propels characters "to find and lose and find each other again"―in the imagination and in the stories these poems tell. The final line of "The Sounds of Yiddish"―"Spare us what we can learn to endure"―closes a playful send-up, dramatizing language, culture, and power. Writing in The Washington Post, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky praises Becker's "comic timing." Longtime readers of Becker's work will delight in poems cast in a variety of stanzas and experimental forms. Their occasions are diverse―an animal shelter, a failed trip to Venice, a hospice bedside―but Becker ultimately yokes a language of praise to our stumbling, humble, human efforts.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
2 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Robin Becker
29 books14 followersRobin Becker (born 1951) is an American poet, critic, feminist, and professor.
Becker earned a BA and MA at Boston University. She taught for many years at the MIT before returning to Pennsylvania in 1994, where she is Liberal Arts Research Professor of English and Women's Studies at Penn State.
Becker is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently, Tiger Heron and Domain of Perfect Affection. Her All American Girl won the 1996 Lambda Literary Award in Poetry. In 2000 she was honored with Penn State's George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching, and she served as Penn State Laureate in 2010-11. Other honours include fellowships from The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies of the City University of New York, The William Steeple Davis Foundation, the Mary Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Becker’s interest in narrative springs from her family background, including a childhood spent listening to her grandmother’s stories, learning from her the nuances of storytelling and her family’s history in Ukraine. Becker was also greatly influenced by the women writers whose poetry was available in the 1970s, including Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Maxine Kumin, Denise Levertov, and Susan Griffin. Poet Stephen Dunn regards Becker as achieving “what may be one of the early twenty first century’s most difficult accomplishments—to write a credible poetry of affirmation. In the doing, she doesn’t pretty up the world. Rather, she finds language that embraces our dualities, our many-selved presences, regularly demonstrating her kind of perfect affection.”
Becker earned a BA and MA at Boston University. She taught for many years at the MIT before returning to Pennsylvania in 1994, where she is Liberal Arts Research Professor of English and Women's Studies at Penn State.
Becker is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently, Tiger Heron and Domain of Perfect Affection. Her All American Girl won the 1996 Lambda Literary Award in Poetry. In 2000 she was honored with Penn State's George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching, and she served as Penn State Laureate in 2010-11. Other honours include fellowships from The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies of the City University of New York, The William Steeple Davis Foundation, the Mary Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Becker’s interest in narrative springs from her family background, including a childhood spent listening to her grandmother’s stories, learning from her the nuances of storytelling and her family’s history in Ukraine. Becker was also greatly influenced by the women writers whose poetry was available in the 1970s, including Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Maxine Kumin, Denise Levertov, and Susan Griffin. Poet Stephen Dunn regards Becker as achieving “what may be one of the early twenty first century’s most difficult accomplishments—to write a credible poetry of affirmation. In the doing, she doesn’t pretty up the world. Rather, she finds language that embraces our dualities, our many-selved presences, regularly demonstrating her kind of perfect affection.”
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 5, 2015
Good poet.
December 31, 2022
Lovely poems about death and loss. A new friend gave me this book and I’m so grateful.
September 25, 2015
Actual Rating: 3.5 of 5 thorns
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews