Barnes & NobleJersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet by Robert Pinsky

Interesting, Entertaining

Growing up in a historic, perpetually declining American resort town, with families of year-round Hispanic and South Asian newcomers beginning to arrive, I could see that nearly everybody feels like an outsider, one way or another. from Jersey Breaks by Robert Pinsky In 1998 my husband gifted me The Figured Wheel by Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the United States. But the real impetus for reading Pinsky’s memoir was 1) I am always interested in writers and their stories, and 2) a friend grew up in Long Branch, NJ, and her family married into Pinsky’s family and as a girl she called him ‘cousin’. I could learn about her hometown and about the poet at the same time! I loved reading about Pinsky’s discovery of literature and poetry, the magic of words. The books that captivated him as a child, the poets in his personal canon. And, I enjoyed his stories about his colorful family, growing up Jewish Orthodox with a grandfather who worked for a famous crime kingpin. How could the book I loved trick me that way? With so few words? Then, I felt wonder. How was something so real created in such a small space? How had the writer built so much inside my mind? A kind of question I keep trying to answer. from Jersey Breaks by Robert Pinsky I understood Pinksy’s marveling on the magic of stories. As a girl, I realized that a book affected my emotions and spurred my imagination. Writers were powerful. I have spent my life trying to understanding how they do it. “Language-drunk,” he describes himself, drawn from the saxophone to Yeats Sailing to Byzantium, a conversion to poetry; he explains, “But what I try to do in my poems is almost exactly what I wanted to do with the horn.” The book is far ranging, incorporating Pinksy’s family, teachers, other poets, insight into his own poetry. He explains what drives his poetry, the music of language, the rhythm and drive of words. One of my favorite chapters addresses the vagaries of fame, how for some, fame is short term and fades while those ignored later rise to acclaim. We are driven to work for excellence, but fame does not always result. His work with deaf and blind poets was so interesting. The hand sign for poetry is “a fountain-like burst of five fingers opening out from the heart,” he shares. …Poetry does not merely put particular feeling and ideas into language, it creates an experience that reminds us of something beyond any particular feelings and ideas. from Jersey Breaks by Robert Pinsky Granted, I would have gained more from some parts of the book had I read all of his contemporary poets that he discusses. But I found it an interesting read. And, I have taken that gifted book off the shelf to revisit his poems. I received a free egalley from the publisher through Net Galley. My review is fair and unbiased.