THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME
Lori B. Andrews, THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM MEDeparting little from such well-titled volumes as The Common
and The Pose of Happiness , this fourth collection contains well-crafted poems about Jewish-American middle-class midlife and strife, thoughtful ekphrases, and nostalgic goings-over of origins and relationships: "Once, when I was a child,/ my mother lied to me. Maybe that day/ I was too demanding, more likely I needed/ consolation—my schoolmates so lucky,/ so confident,/ so gentile." Such concerns carry over into the poet's literary life (a dominant theme), as "Keep Going" makes clear: "...your name misspelled on last evening's program;// the party uptown after the ceremonies and readings—/ an editor praising C's poems as if you weren't// standing there beside him, craving appreciation." The title poem's Gershwin-refrained questionings—"wouldn't I choose if I could not to be human or/ any other mammal programmed for cruelty?"—give way, in "I Wish I Want I Need," to unhurried lines explaining the plot of the 1970s film The Way We Were
and why the speaker admires Barbra Streisand's performance therein. The grasping Freudian overtones finally overwhelm poems like "My Dream after Mother Breaks Her Hip" ("I can't dream her power away/ I'm caught here/ in eternity's shade// where I begin to move/ gradually gracelessly/ to embrace her// tree muse emptiness/ cage world") and aren't really ever relieved here, even by "Three Provincetown Mornings." (Apr.)
closeDetailsReviewed on: 03/26/2001
Genre: Poetry
Departing little from such well-titled volumes as
Reviewed on: 03/26/2001
Genre: Poetry
