Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In her acclaimed collections Happy Family and Music Minus One, Jane Shore traced her life from childhood to coming of age to parenthood. Now, in A Yes-or-No Answer, Shore etches the persistence of the past in a life that has moved into a mature new phase as a member of the baby boom generation. Recalling her Jewish childhood in New Jersey, living in the apartment above the family's clothing store, Shore lovingly imagines her parents, now gone, reunited with relatives over a Scrabble board in the afterlife. The poet's teenage daughter sorts through the "vintage" clothes of her mother's own hippie days. Cherished items left behind -- an address book, a piano, an easy chair, a favorite doll -- continue to haunt the living.
The poems in A Yes-or-No Answer dignify memory through precise detail, with a voice that will resonate for a generation at a crossroads.
About the Author
JANE SHORE is the author of five books of poetry, including her most recent, A Yes or No Answer, and Music Minus One, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has won the Juniper Prize and the Lamont Poetry Prize. She teaches at George Washington University.
Table of Contents
I A Yes-or-No Answer 3 The Streak 5 Rattlesnake 7 My Mothers Chair 9 The Closet 11 Ode to Utensils 12 Possession 14 Trouble Dolls 16 The Blue Address Book 18
II A 440 23 The Mausoleum 26 My Daughter Reads My Old Diary 28 Dummy 29 Shopping Urban 31 My Mothers Foot 33 Keys 35 Trick Candles 37 My Fathers Visits 39 Unforgettable 40
III Dream City 45 Family Portrait, Minsk, c. 1900 47 Body and Soul 49 Gods Breath 51 On the Way Back from Goodwill 52 The Clothes Swap 54 Fugue 55 Scrabble in Heaven 57 September 9, 1995 59 Gelato 61 notes 65