Bitter Angel

by Amy Gerstler

Book by Gerstler, Amy

Genres: Poetry

79 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1990

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

[Kristin]

Couldn't really keep my interest; I had a difficult time finishing this book, which is strange to say about a book of poems.

I like the prose poems best, although those were also hit or miss. All of the poems in general were a bit too prosaic for my taste.

The book as a whole didn't seem to stand up to the promise that many of the best poems in it offered.

[Emily]

You can read a poem breathless to get to the end and still not know exactly what it is about.

[Tyler Ookami]

My favorite of the Gerstler collections I have read so far. It won't make an interesting review since I don't have much criticism other than it being backloaded. Typical themes of hers: zoology and religion. But also a fascination with inanimate objects is a bigger theme in here than in other works of hers. I would say that The Sexuality of Objects is my favorite work of hers I have read and the piece I would recommend to someone who wants to familiarize themselves with Gerstler.

[Rodney Phillips]

This is the reissue pictured.
Original: SF, Northpoint Press, 1990

[EIJANDOLUM]

I kiss your old and new wounds, I kiss you. I do.

[…]

My love for you […] akin to homesickness.

[Brendan]

It's a high 3, like a 3 1/2. She seems like a cool chick - modern, liberal (in the true sense of the word), a bit edgy but tender when appropriate as well. Some of her pieces have longer lines than I prefer, but she sticks to the subject of humanity usually. (As I mentioned in a previous review, I'm not a fan of nature poems.) I think I was left with the feeling that she didn't tap fully into her potential.

[Hans]

I liked many phrases or sections (e.g. "Beekeepers constitute a brotherhood. Their urine smells of pinenuts and justice."), but didn't fall for this selection of poems.

(To be fair, I've recently fallen hard for the words and works of another poet--Mary Ruefle--so other poets' poems don't feel quite as shiny right now. It is probably just a literary crush story, so there will be room for other poets at some point.)

[Tracey]

One of my bibles in the 1990s.