True Bride

by Amy Gerstler

Book by Gerstler, Amy

Genres: Poetry

71 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 1986

About the author

Known for its wit and complexity, Amy Gerstler's poetry deals with themes such as redemption, suffering, and survival. Author of over a dozen poetry collections, two works of fiction, and various articles, reviews, and collaborations with visual artists, Gerstler won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Bitter Angel (1990). Her early work, including White Marriage/Recovery (1984), was highly praised. Gerstler's more recent works include Nerve Storm (1993), Medicine (2000), Ghost Girl (2004), Dearest Creature (2009), which the New York Times named a Notable Book of the Year, and Scattered At Sea (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Born in 1956, Gerstler is a graduate of Pitzer College and holds an M.F.A. from Bennington College. She is now a professor in the MFA writing program at the University of California, Irvine. Previously, she taught in the Bennington Writing Seminars program, at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program. She lives in California with her husband, the artist and author Benjamin Weissman.

Reviews

[J]

A few standouts but not nearly as disturbingly refined as her later work.

[Abraham]

I enjoyed this, and might have given it 3.5 stars rather than 3 stars. Maybe I liked it because I haven't been reading a lot of poetry lately and it's a good re-entry point. It's just the right mix of straightforward narrative and lyrical distractions.

I first read Gerstler when John Ashbery recommended her to a friend who was taking his class at Bard, seventeen years ago. He'd suggested that she was "experimental". She doesn't seem particularly experimental now - the prose poems address fairly mundane issues and do so without moving too far from an understood approach. Still, it is enjoyable, the quiet, short sentences and the way she moves so elegantly from the narrative to the lyrical does make me remember why poetry, as a category, is relevant.

These are poems in voice, and the great weakness is the male voice. I don't buy it at all - there is a feeling that the author is trying to get into the mind of someone exotic, and the banalities she chooses and the emotionality just do not hit home. The female voices are strong and drifting, and a joy to follow. Thankfully, they are the major portion of the book.

[Gary McDowell]

My first edition hardcover of this book is sweet.

[Ms.]

This was a really important book at a really rough time in my life. It's raw, painful to read at times and fucking fabulous. I wish I still had this book.