Dearest Creature

by Amy Gerstler

A surreal new collection from an acclaimed poet

Hallucinogenic plants chant in chorus. A thoughtful dog grants an interview. A caterpillar offers life advice. Amy Gerstler’s newest collection of poetry, Dearest Creature, marries fact and fiction in a menagerie of dramatic monologues, twisted love poems, and epistolary pleadings. Drawing on sources as disparate as Lewis Carroll and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , as well as abnormal psychology, etiquette, and archaeology texts, these darkly imaginative poems probe what it means to be a sentient, temporary, flesh-and-blood beast, to be hopelessly, vividly creaturely.

Genres: Poetry, 21st Century, Contemporary

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2009

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

[Ryan]

Upon diving into Amy Gestler’s work for the very first time, I’ve become of the impression she is at once a passionate devourer of history, and a proud respecter of it—but is also fully immersed and embracing of modern life and its everyday minutiae . She begins by referring to how much exciting info her 100 year old encyclopedias have, and uses that to frame her work and create a vast network of interconnecting information. And frankly, her excitedly flowing poetry that is at once interwoven with eclectic, recherché subjects—and also making it relatable—is a difficult feat, which she makes look effortless.

Its as if Gestler dipped her feat into these deep and ancient blue waters of her vintage textbooks, and fell in; poems about Etruscans throwing delicious feasts, a disaffected resident of the European Middle Ages, and sagacious caterpillars all are living, breathing entities. All are so much fun, with a clear, tastefully well-hidden depth of learning; with prose so effortlessly addictive and digestible, that it belies the fact she is poet of the highest order.

[Kate]

This is a book of creatures that does not disappoint (and I am speaking as one familiar with creature books in general). In each poem, Gerstler allows some part of herself a moment, a voice. Each of these parts I could see mirrored (sometimes in a warped, fun-house sort of way) in my own self, and yet they each stand unique, creaturely, as selves belonging to no one else but themselves.

I found one of the strongest, most persistent voices in this book coming from "Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs". This could be simply because most all of the other persona are treated with a light touch and a sense of play. I do enjoy this part of Gerstler's poetry- to describe life as a caterpillar or a dog as it's done here takes an awesome sense of creativity and intuition. Even in a poem like "Broken Lines", where there is an assumed sense of somberness, she manages to stay playful and say, "Keep an eye on us, will ya? Don't let your friends get too sullen or puckered."

"Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs" is an earnest poem that, in its fifteen-plus pages, has no room for joy. Despite its heavy emotions, the poem really shines. Gerstler's subtle imagery of two monsters in love on the lip of the Grand Canyon has flashed in my head since reading the poem, and this will be one of the reasons I will no doubt turn these pages again.

[Amber]

Absolutely STUNNING. Gerstler writes in a way that makes me want to wrap myself in her words as I peruse through a 1950 edition of the World Encyclopedia and sip percolated coffee. This is stick-to-your ribs poetry. Nuts and berries and salty things for the soul.

[Christy]

I'm a vertebrate gumbo. But who
among us is not a comically constructed
mutt, a cacophonous anthology?

It's always hard for me to evaluate a book of poems because I never feel equally strongly about all of them. Here there are several poems that I truly love and want to return to in the future (or even read multiple times as I read through the book), including "For My Niece Sidney, Age Six," "Advice from a Caterpillar," "Chanson," "Birds of America," "Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs" (from which the above lines are taken), and "Elegy with Peonies." "For My Niece Sidney" and "Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs" are particularly wonderful.

[Mary Kathryn]

Playful, droll, smart verses full of feeling. From "Birds of America"'s "season of my comeuppance" to the mistressful "Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs" with its recognition that each of us is "a comically constructed / mutt, a cacophonous anthology" to the very pleasurable "Untranslatable," these poems will win you over.

[Taffnerd]

This is some of the finest poetry I've read (granted the sample is small) - I picked this up from the New shelves at the library because I liked the cover - yes, I judged a book by it's cover despite all the warnings against - and I thought it might make a nice companion to the Billy Collins book I also checked out. This was way better.

[MJ Samuel]

This poetry collection was a little over my head. I'm not a big fan of quirkiness and felt I was too distracted by the eccentricities of the poems to really get much out of them. A longer study of the work may lead me to a different outcome but there are other poetry styles I would rather enjoy.

[Morgan Nikola-Wren]

4.5.

Some of these poems didn't quite hit it for me, but many of them were wondrous.

[Sarah]

Picked up at Normals Used Books on a very rainy Saturday when I drove too far to get there but what was I gonna do, not go to Normals? Weirdo poems that serve as a good reminder that you can write poems about anything--a dog's thoughts, a monster's memoirs, the encyclopedia, etc.

[Laura]

"...Some of us grow up doing
credible impressions of model citizens
(though sooner or later hairline
cracks appear in our facades). The rest
get dubbed eccentrics, unnerved and undone
by other people's company, for which we
nevertheless pine..."
from "For My Niece Sidney, Age Six")

Gerstler's poems are witty and surreal. With humor she examines her place in the world as well as observes what others do as well. Her poetry does not judge us on some self-righteous principles, but in sort of the same fond way we remember with a chuckle or a smile what we used to think or do as a child - while still handling very tough themes such as suffering, love, and survival.This collection of poetry takes you through an open letter to her nice about how she already sees her younger self in her; in another poem, furniture and kitchen appliances come to life in order to console the narrator; there is an interview with a dog who explains the mystery as to why right after a bath he feels the need to roll in muck; and a tale about Frankenstein's monster and his wife and how they are getting along. This is a charming collection of poetry; very fun, very modern, and I believe very relevant. Gerstler is really a gem in modern American poetry.

[Drunken_orangetree]

Gerstler uses ordinary diction--"big guy," "soooo important"--alongside much snazzier locutions--"Fear not the tarnish and diminishments of age." Her speakers are sometimes mundane: a "bookish aunt" writing to her budding rebellious niece or a lover regretting the end of an affair. Or sometimes mysterious: a time-traveling correspondent from the Middle Ages, or "Mrs. Monster" telling how she loved her filthy monstrous husband, now long dead.

In fact the last part of the book, entitled Elegy, is a collection of such reflections: for friends, dead lovers, her own youth. But despite the potentially dreary subject matter she voices these laments in a bright inventive voice, not ignoring sorrow, but expressing it with a loopy sensibility not entirely removed from silliness. The last poem in the collection "Midlife Lullaby" is a meditation on mortality that ends with the ironic comfort provided by a meat loaf sandwich:

it gives our sagging spirits a lift and beguiles our tongues
with onions, mustard, and mortal sweetness welling
up from deep in the beef, which if meat could speak
might moo or sigh: "Yes, I too was well fed in my time."

[Sarah]

I mostly loved these poems. I don't have any favorites, just love them overall. Each poem has a different form, a different story, but they weaved together so well! The separate parts didn't fit exactly to form an even, coordinated puzzle though. Despite that, I like what this collection left me with--a session of thoughtless energy. I sat on my bed and watched a movie, not incredibly happy but just "fine", which felt great. If I had homework I could have done it then without a worry. It took me a long time to get around to reviewing, I would have a lot more to say, but I think I really love this collection. As I read it I started feeling less lonely, less worried about what other people thought of me, because the voices and characters were very relatable.

My only criticism is that some of the ideas felt overused, several being cliched, and there were two or three poems that I thought were contrived. However there was plenty of imagination to make up for it, mostly.

[Hans]

Picked this up based on a line excerpt from "Interview with a Dog," that Lorrie Moore included as a preface to her story collection Bark. Humor, tragedy, pathos, and anthropomorphism: what else do you need from a poetry collection?!?

Lots more to enjoy, but I'll call out a few poems (though the list would probably change if I read this at another time):
--"For My Dear Niece Sidney, Age Six"
--"Dearest Creature"
--"Advice from a Caterpillar"
--"At the Back of a Closet, Two Dresses Converse" - echoes of another book I'm currently reading: Sheila Heti's Women in Clothes
--+ most of the Elegy section, even though it closes the collection on a darker note

[Deb]

Saw a poem from this collection on Mark Doty's blog and went to Powell's the next day to get it. Read a couple of poems to a non-poet co-worker on a drive to a job site (and lent it to her after I finished it later in the week).

This is the kind of book I would hope to write (one day). One of my favorite first two lines ever, from "Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoir"

Here’s a technical question.
Dare I write my fractured past

[Nancy]

Delicious. In sound and in sense.

I eat this up: in "Moths": eyes like tiny burn holes.

Yet, there is much I don't understand -- why is "Untranslatable" for David Lehman? Who are all the other dedicatees? -- and was kind of unmoved throughout the "Maidenly" section.
And still! I continue adoring.
For moments like these:
"Moon Salutation": Even as I sleep in a ravine on a mattress of dead grass, bright jawbreaker, I do salute you

[Patricia Murphy]

We were honored to interview her in Superstition Review: https://superstitionreview.asu.edu/is...

There is a lot to love in this book.I feel it does what she wants it to do, which is invite the reader in.

"Complaints about you are already filtering in."

"How I long to zip a zipper."

"You're the overthrow of all my former opinions."

"Plural as a litter of kittens."

"Peonies may indeed be the sluttiest
flowers."

[Brian]

"Seriously undermedicated, I waltz/ downstairs into the soaked street/ during a short storm."
And one of the more authentic and lovely elegies ever:
"But how're we supposed to maintain/ after you so brutally subtracted yourself/ from the habitable? Our anguish/ areas are ever expanding, just like our/ horizons. Keep an eye on us, will ya?"

[Donald Armfield]

Gerstler's twisted love poems are told with wit and grimey spit. I am hooked on Gerstler's work. Already got 2 more of her books on hold at library.

A caterpillars advice, Mrs Monster pens her memoirs and hallucinogenic plants. Great read.

-For My Niece Age 6
-Sonnet
- Luncheon with the Etruscans
- Moon Salutations
-Advice from a caterpillar
-Chanson
-Always
-Contrite
-Dusk

[Allison]

I feel as though I could read this a thousand times without uncovering all its secrets. Delightful, delectable, the poetry equivalent of a bed full of mattresses and quilts and pillows of feathers and fur and your mother's musky sweaters and your ex-boyfriend's stale-cigarette-smoke t-shirts: I want to leap into Gerstler's hundreds of perfect words and snuggle and smell and sleep.

[Alarie]

This is the quirkiest (in a good way!) collection of poems I’ve ever read. While Guerstler didn’t resonate as deeply with me as some favorite poets, she’s wildly entertaining. A letter from the Middle Ages, an interview with a dog, and conversations with dresses and caterpillars are just a few of the delights. Not every poetry book holds laugh out loud moments. I like how this woman thinks!

[Helen]

Surreal poems in which inanimate objects speak and plants chant. Fun and unique and surprisingly deep. I especially liked the poem in which the Bride of Frankenstein documents her life as Mrs Monster.

[Lara]

I didn't like all of the poems but I adored the central and longest poem, Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs.

[Barbara]

Not my favorite of hers, but since she's one of my very faves, it's still pretty darn good.

[Denise]

You don't have to be a fan of poetry to like this entertaining 80-page collection. And don't expect rhyme or much structure--in fact, many of the poems are "prose poems," that relatively recent genre that is so hard to define, like the difference between rap and hip-hop. (My children never could agree on a definition in order to teach me the difference, but they knew it when they heard it.) What Dearest Creature does have is fresh imagery and lots of inter-character communication. Dresses converse in a closet. Appliances converse with the writer in the kitchen. Letters arrive across time from the Middle Ages. A dog is interviewed. The author writes or speaks to deceased friends and ex-lovers on both sides of the grave. A lunch with ancient Etruscans is described. We are lectured by both caterpillars and hallucinogenic plants. (Quite a few drug references.) There are offerings both light and heavy. Original and entertaining, this is not your grandmother's poetry.

[Helen]

“It's difficult, though, not to feel left behind by your suicide, like a child who flunked third grade plunked down in a rickety folding chair to watch a parade of classmates graduate. The earth still pirouettes.,
Horse doctors continue to write haiku and mend split hooves.
We keep telling each other you had the right (since everybody does) and made a brave end.
But how're we supposed to maintain after you so brutally subtracted yourself from the habitable? Our anguish areas are ever expanding, just like our horizons. Keep an eye on us, will ya?
Don't let your friends get too sullen or puckered. Deep in the background of erudite or wasted conversations, let us intuit you as subtext, as static, some fuzzy transmission from the deserted cities you've got all to yourself now, big guy.”

[angel]

beautiful poetry collection. at the beginning. it kinda lost me but got me back in the middle through the end. it was simple. honest. and whimsical. it was an easy and comforting read. something i would read again in the future which i am looking forward to already because i feel like i will love it even more then. the images it created were just sublime and unique and modern but at the same time folkish. maidenly is the best chapter and that long long long poem. wow. i just wanted mrs monster to keep on going. it was delightful.

[Dana Neily]

3.5
An odd little collection varying in quality. The poems here are often persona pieces, or absurdist in some way, which at best comes of as original and thoughtful and at worst nonsensical. However, the entire collection is worth such masterful pieces as "Mrs. Monster Pens her Memoirs" and "Elegy with Peonies."

[Julie]

Clever, funny, haunting poems. Poetry volumes are hard to rate because I can swoon over a poem on one page and the very next will leave me feeling cold, but this collection is mostly solid; there's a lot here to adore.

[DilanAc]

Some of these poems are personal and not completely accessible but I did love many of them, for example "Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs". The expansiveness of this poem suits Gerstler and it is wild and mysterious and so true.

[Michael]

I’m very glad I read this book of poetry. The poet is delightful with language. She plays with it, with precision. Her words illumine grief and joy, love and pain. She often made me laugh out loud.