Description
Kind: Perfect Bound- Pages: 68
- Language: English
- ISBN: 978-1-933675-51-0
Praise
“Gerry Grubbs’ poems are of making and unmaking, of loss and recovery, of absence and presence, of all that abides and all that does not. They are open, honest, and direct, with a metaphoric power that takes us into the mysterious heart of things. Grubbs writes about family, about nature, about love. But his deepest subject is the ineffable, which casts its shadow upon his words, “Leaving us wondering / What has been lost / And how its absence / Effects everything that follows.” —Norman Finkelstein
“Gerry Grubbs gives us his subtly powerful, personal interpretation of the world in and around us. His work enlightens our insight.” —Ned Stern
“Grubb’s poetry recalls us to the the pleasures of metaphor and the excitement of following the surprising unfoldings of his sinuous verse sentences. One cannot predict where a Grubbs poem will arrive. Each arrival is a discovery.” —Ernest Fontana
“Gerry Grubbs’ first collection of poems is a careful measure of distances, a barometer of inexorable but interminable longing and falling. If “Each star” is indeed “a startling reminder/Of someone else’s discovery,” belatedness is the other word for distances which cannot be closed, the homoeostasis of domesticated happiness (nodded to in Part 2) notwithstanding. Small wonder, then, that a little nacht muzik, the familiar that arrives in the guise of a stranger, shows up late in this book: an “old man…Looking down/At an old photo/ Of a building/Which no longer stands.” He is looking not only at the building but also at the women who once danced in front of the building. This most ordinary of images still has the power to surprise, if not stun, precisely because it is just an ordinary reminder of human desire: “You can still hear him cooing.” That old coot—yes, he dead. But also: he us.” —Tyrone Williams
“Grubbs’ poems expose the gossamer, ephemeral, intangible, and intolerable aspects of existence. Like exquisite delicacies, they melt with the heat of reading.” —Annie Pedret
An Excerpt
Gone
Don’t look for me
When you come
To the mountains
I am not there
In spite of what
My letters said
Those are not my things
Lying around the dark pit
And those little songs
Tied to the trees
With golden thread
Are just fruit
For a certain bird
That no longer hunts
It just sits
In that scraggy tree
And sings
About the Author
Gerry Grubbs has been publishing poems in small press magazines for a number of years. He lives in Cincinnati where he has practiced law since 1989.
Photo of author by Brian Heller
