Amber necklace from Gdańsk : poems / Linda Nemec Foster.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foster, Linda Nemec.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Polish Americans--Poetry.

Polish Americans.

Americans--Poland--Poetry.

Americans.

Poland--Poetry.

Poland.

Women--Poetry.

Women.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

vi, 56 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2001.

Summary:

Inspired by her Polish American heritage and her first visit to her family's homeland in 1996, Linda Nemec Foster's stunning new collection poignantly reflects on the immigrant experience--an experience of loss and discovery, of ambivalence and pride, of deep tragedy and redemption. Foster's own ethnicity as the daughter of second-generation immigrants from Poland is colored by America's somewhat disinterested view of the "other" Europe--only recently emerged from history's dark shadow--and of a country that for a hundred years did not exist as a political entity. In the book's opening poem, "The Awkward Young Girl Approaching You," she struggles with this sense of ethnic identity: "Who will speak for the dis-possessed, / those who come from nowhere, / whose birthplace cannot be found / on any map . . . ?" Foster's attempts to reclaim an ethnic heritage, to search for herself in the mirror of her family's history, resonate throughout her verse. Divided into four parts and employing an impressive variety of poetic styles and forms, Amber Necklace from Gda ́nsk moves from lyric childhood memories and descriptions of immigrant life to prose poems that interweave the mythic and historic past with the present. Foster captures the stark sense of loss that permeates Poland--from Chopin's self-exile, to the silence of rain, to the overwhelming horror of the Holocaust--and concludes with a group of poems that reveal resilience in the face of a haunted past and an iconoclastic present. Imaginative, powerful, surprising, and magical, Foster's lines breathe life into the land, history, and culture of her ancestors. Who will speak for the dispossessed? These poems will.

Contents:

I. Conjuring Up the Landscape

The Awkward Young Girl Approaching You 1

Doppelganger 3

The Therapeutist: After Magritte 4

The Immigrant's Dream 5

My Name 6

Young Boy in a Tenement House, Holding the Moon 7

Portrait of My Father, Learning to Count 8

The Immigrant Children at Union School 10

The Old Neighborhood 11

The Silent One 13

Ritual 14

The Tree That Almost Died 16

The Countries That Claim Me 18

Sitting in America at the End of the Century 19

II. The Rivers of Past and Present

The Two Rivers in My Story 21

The Woman with the Two Rivers Growing from Her Hair 22

Mengele's Butterflies 24

Layover in Frankfurt 25

Homecoming 27

III. Dark Amber of Regret

Mazovian Willows 29

In My Grandmother's House 31

The Rain Leaving Its Breath on the Grass 33

Mother Embracing Her Daughter in a Garden of Sunflowers 34

The Rain in Bielsko 35

Letter from the Last Place on Earth 36

Huge Oak Filling the Sky 37

After the War: Purple Flowers Spilling from the Windows 38

Songs of Sorrow 39

Chapel with Skulls 40

Moje Rozwiane Wlosy 41

Our Last Day in Krakow 42

Amber Necklace from Gdansk 43

IV. To Smile at the Closed Mouth of Loss

Colors from the City of White 44

On Winning the Nobel Prize 46

The Silenced Woman of Krakow 47

Twelve Amulets from Medieval Warsaw 48

Gospel Eggs 50

Disposable Icon 51

Fashion Statement in Front of the Palace of Culture and Science 52

Wedding Gown Bazaar 53

The Visitors from Warsaw 54

Dancing with My Sister 56.

ISBN:

0807127116

0807127124

OCLC:

47013097