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Asperity Street
Poetry. ASPERITY STREET, Gail White's most balanced poetry collection, explores the breadth of human existence with cutting wit, irreverence, keen intelligence, and an uncommon mix of empathy and asperity. Besides the cynical or the lighthearted, which are hallmarks of White's work, there is a newfound earnestness and gravity in these poems in their survey and interrogation of the human condition. White journeys the span from nursery to hospice—in between, she navigates the prom, family occasions, mating, gossip, and money matters with masterful formal dexterity. This is a collection that rewards the reader with a thoroughly entertaining and illuminating experience. ASPERITY STEET is a special honoree in the 2014 Able Muse Book Award.
"In her remarkable collection, ASPERITY STREET, Gail White takes on the whole sweep of existence. The street becomes the road of a lifetime, beginning with a Southern childhood and ending with a hospice finale. Laconic, ironic and comic, White's drily resourceful, wickedly companionable voice takes aim on patrimony, matrimony, religion, money and the myth that assumes we choose our lives. With her sublime linguistic choreography, these poems dance to complex metrical tunes. We feel and hear them pulse with equal parts sympathy and vitriol. In Gail White's capable hands, ASPERITY STREET unfolds as a brilliant mural we can return to again and again, as the poet does—still vulnerable, and wiser each time."— Molly Peacock
"Gail White has done it here is another collection by one of America's wittiest, most technically adept, funniest and most serious commentators on what it feels like to be human."—Rhina P. Espaillat
"I looked forward to reading Gail White's new book of poems, ASPERITY STREET, because I know she is one of America's funniest poets, so when I got the manuscript I sat down to read it immediately. I knew how much I would enjoy it. I was not disappointed. The first three sections of this four-part collection have wit and bon mots in good measure, socko endings, words I'd never seen in poems before, like 'cloaca' or a made- up word ending, 'substituth,' to satisfy a droll rhyme. But nothing prepared me for part four. Nothing procedural changed. The insights were as sharp as ever, the language exact and clear, the cleverness and dexterity with form as deft, the music as mesmerizing...but this was a serious poet I'd not encountered there was a deepening of vision, an enhancement of feeling, the rueful treatment of life and death took on a cutting edge that slices to the bone. Don't miss reading this book."—Lewis Turco
"In her remarkable collection, ASPERITY STREET, Gail White takes on the whole sweep of existence. The street becomes the road of a lifetime, beginning with a Southern childhood and ending with a hospice finale. Laconic, ironic and comic, White's drily resourceful, wickedly companionable voice takes aim on patrimony, matrimony, religion, money and the myth that assumes we choose our lives. With her sublime linguistic choreography, these poems dance to complex metrical tunes. We feel and hear them pulse with equal parts sympathy and vitriol. In Gail White's capable hands, ASPERITY STREET unfolds as a brilliant mural we can return to again and again, as the poet does—still vulnerable, and wiser each time."— Molly Peacock
"Gail White has done it here is another collection by one of America's wittiest, most technically adept, funniest and most serious commentators on what it feels like to be human."—Rhina P. Espaillat
"I looked forward to reading Gail White's new book of poems, ASPERITY STREET, because I know she is one of America's funniest poets, so when I got the manuscript I sat down to read it immediately. I knew how much I would enjoy it. I was not disappointed. The first three sections of this four-part collection have wit and bon mots in good measure, socko endings, words I'd never seen in poems before, like 'cloaca' or a made- up word ending, 'substituth,' to satisfy a droll rhyme. But nothing prepared me for part four. Nothing procedural changed. The insights were as sharp as ever, the language exact and clear, the cleverness and dexterity with form as deft, the music as mesmerizing...but this was a serious poet I'd not encountered there was a deepening of vision, an enhancement of feeling, the rueful treatment of life and death took on a cutting edge that slices to the bone. Don't miss reading this book."—Lewis Turco
- GenresPoetry
98 pages, Paperback
Published August 31, 2015
About the author
Gail White
41 books4 followersGail is widely published in the world of formal poetry. Her home is in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana where she lives on the Bayou Teche with her husband and cats.
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 16, 2021
”A Visit on All Saints Day”
Hello. I’ve brought your favorite flowers again.
How is it going under there, my dead?
On this side, we’re no better off than when
you walked beside us. (Yes, I know I said
the same last year.) The human race is not
improvable. Ask any saint you meet.
We’ve gone to war again without a thought.
Our leaders shuffle bribes, our heroes cheat.
Your children haven’t turned out awfully well,
but who expected it? You’re not to blame,
and anyway, I don’t believe in hell.
Goodbye for now. I’m always glad I came.
I make no promises about next year,
but one way or another, I’ll be here.
In Asperity Street, Gail White employs formal verse structures (sonnets, villanelles, etc.) to reflect on four stages of life: Growing, Working, Holding, and Leaving. White uses humor and, at times, pathos as she wends these rhymes through the life cycle. While at times coming across as cantankerous or pompous, there are excellent poems melding her vision or thoughts with an appropriate form. Though not consistent in quality, this is a good book for readers looking for more traditional, formal poetry.
from ”Superfluous Words”
The world does not need one more villanelle,
yet teachers still assign the exercise.
Sooner or later someone does it well.
More verses than the damned can read in hell
are written daily, so it’s no surprise
the world does not need one more villanelle,
but it does need the countless things we sell
in stores, the million things we advertise?
Sooner or later something is done well.
Louisiana Poetry Reviews
How the Dead Bury the Dead <--------> The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems After Pictures by Jean-François Millet
Hello. I’ve brought your favorite flowers again.
How is it going under there, my dead?
On this side, we’re no better off than when
you walked beside us. (Yes, I know I said
the same last year.) The human race is not
improvable. Ask any saint you meet.
We’ve gone to war again without a thought.
Our leaders shuffle bribes, our heroes cheat.
Your children haven’t turned out awfully well,
but who expected it? You’re not to blame,
and anyway, I don’t believe in hell.
Goodbye for now. I’m always glad I came.
I make no promises about next year,
but one way or another, I’ll be here.
In Asperity Street, Gail White employs formal verse structures (sonnets, villanelles, etc.) to reflect on four stages of life: Growing, Working, Holding, and Leaving. White uses humor and, at times, pathos as she wends these rhymes through the life cycle. While at times coming across as cantankerous or pompous, there are excellent poems melding her vision or thoughts with an appropriate form. Though not consistent in quality, this is a good book for readers looking for more traditional, formal poetry.
from ”Superfluous Words”
The world does not need one more villanelle,
yet teachers still assign the exercise.
Sooner or later someone does it well.
More verses than the damned can read in hell
are written daily, so it’s no surprise
the world does not need one more villanelle,
but it does need the countless things we sell
in stores, the million things we advertise?
Sooner or later something is done well.
Louisiana Poetry Reviews
How the Dead Bury the Dead <--------> The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems After Pictures by Jean-François Millet
September 30, 2016
The first three sections of Gail White's collection of her formalist poetry, "Aperity Street", are polished, witty, enjoyable pieces. "Growing", "Working" and "Holding" take you through from views of childhood (inside and out) through to late middle age. Almost all of them are technically perfect - meaning, among other things, that they read smoothly without bumps or problems, and any of them would be comparatively easy to learn by heart.
My only problem with them relates to the occasional expression of a religious sentiment. If religion is expressed with the modern power of Gerard Manley Hopkins or Francis Thompson, I have no problem with it. But where it feels merely pious (even if pious with a witty twist), I find it anachronistic in the 21st century, whether it is White's Catholicism or Islam and other religions out there.
However in the fourth section, "Leaving", we keep the polish and wit while moving into the time of chemo, dementia, losing a life companion to old age... This section is far more profound, unflinching, as it considers life in sickness or supporting someone else in sickness, as a widow or as a widower, lives ending with regrets or with acceptance.
Religion comes in here too, but in a way that is not about a particular belief, but about universal experiences. In "Anecdotal Evidence" she ends with "Yet when my mother died, my father said / that just before the chill that would not thaw, / her face lit up with joy at what she saw." I suspect that anyone who lives long enough will experience some event that provides powerful personal evidence of something beyond our normal understanding. This is a well-argued poem to support that concept.
In "How I Spend My Time Since You Died", she writes "Tuesdays, I brood about / the existence of God and the soul. / If I didn't limit this to one day, / it could take over the entire week." (OK, so that's not really formal verse...) But that is the extent of the religion in the poem.
And the last poem in the book, "At the Burial of an Abbess", deals with the dying not just of an individual in the winter, but of an entire religious Order: "We age and die, we fill our space / and no one younger takes our place. (...) The work of all our lifetime lets / us look on death with no regrets: / we vanish as the snow forgets."
It is an extremely satisfying collection, and delightful in growing in depth and maturity as you read through it.
My only problem with them relates to the occasional expression of a religious sentiment. If religion is expressed with the modern power of Gerard Manley Hopkins or Francis Thompson, I have no problem with it. But where it feels merely pious (even if pious with a witty twist), I find it anachronistic in the 21st century, whether it is White's Catholicism or Islam and other religions out there.
However in the fourth section, "Leaving", we keep the polish and wit while moving into the time of chemo, dementia, losing a life companion to old age... This section is far more profound, unflinching, as it considers life in sickness or supporting someone else in sickness, as a widow or as a widower, lives ending with regrets or with acceptance.
Religion comes in here too, but in a way that is not about a particular belief, but about universal experiences. In "Anecdotal Evidence" she ends with "Yet when my mother died, my father said / that just before the chill that would not thaw, / her face lit up with joy at what she saw." I suspect that anyone who lives long enough will experience some event that provides powerful personal evidence of something beyond our normal understanding. This is a well-argued poem to support that concept.
In "How I Spend My Time Since You Died", she writes "Tuesdays, I brood about / the existence of God and the soul. / If I didn't limit this to one day, / it could take over the entire week." (OK, so that's not really formal verse...) But that is the extent of the religion in the poem.
And the last poem in the book, "At the Burial of an Abbess", deals with the dying not just of an individual in the winter, but of an entire religious Order: "We age and die, we fill our space / and no one younger takes our place. (...) The work of all our lifetime lets / us look on death with no regrets: / we vanish as the snow forgets."
It is an extremely satisfying collection, and delightful in growing in depth and maturity as you read through it.
December 7, 2016
In her remarkable collection, Asperity Street, Gail White takes on the whole sweep of existence. The street becomes the road of a lifetime, beginning with a Southern childhood and ending with a hospice finale. Laconic, ironic and comic, White’s drily resourceful, wickedly companionable voice takes aim on patrimony, matrimony, religion, money and the myth that assumes we choose our lives. With her sublime linguistic choreography, these poems dance to complex metrical tunes. We feel and hear them pulse with equal parts sympathy and vitriol. In Gail White’s superbly capable hands, Asperity Street unfolds as a brilliant mural we can return to again and again, as the poet does—still vulnerable, and wiser each time.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews