Ostriker's reputation rests on her energetic, accessible verse from the 1980s and 1990s (The Imaginary Lover; The Crack in Everything) and on her work as a feminist critic and theorist of poetry by women (Stealing the Language). Her admirers will find much to enjoy in her vivid 10th volume, which comprises nine related sets and series of short poems, some more like fragments. Several of these fulfill the titular promise by comparing the poet to a volcano, "righteously/ destroying all/ in its path," or to other forces of nature. Ostriker turns more attention, however, to Jewish history, liturgy and theology. She cites Judaic thinkers like Martin Buber and Judaic texts like the Passover Haggadah; inquires into phrases from biblical Hebrew; and compares herself to Bruriah, "the one woman/ who speaks in Talmud." Painful and affecting poems and fragments follow Ostriker's aging mother through a painful decline: "mother, I am sixty-two// at last able to speak the sentence/ I love you." Other verses address violence in Israel and Palestine, or pursue larger questions about "freedom// how it has to come from suffering." Ostriker tries to address big questions with even bigger statements—one poem begins "what if truth and illusion fuse" and concludes "humankind cannot bear life without deities." Her short-lined, declamatory forms still seem rooted in the 1970s feminist poetics she has chronicled, and her verbal choices lack the subtlety allies (especially Adrienne Rich) bring to similar topics and stances. Nevertheless, sympathetic audiences will certainly admire her brave declarations and identify with her very real tones and concerns. (Mar.)
Forecast:Ostriker's insistent involvement with Jewish issues may bring her a new audience; journals and venues with a Jewish-American focus should certainly pay attention. In the meantime, she is well known on campus, where this book should do well with her peers, if not with later generations.
