Yes, the Ducks Were Real deals with relationships of all kinds, as well as, what goes into day-to-day survival--things that concern everyone and things everyone can relate to. In these poems Lerner goes from being an observer, as in “The Girls from Hell,” to focusing on her own life, which she has successfully mythologized in order to reflect on our fast changing times. Yes, the Ducks Were Real is a collection of modern tales that will have you reading and relating and reverberating into your own mind's mythologies. |
|
This is truly contemporary urban poetry—Big City—New York City—which I read with intense interest and admiration from start to finish. To read, Yes, the Duck Were Real, is to lose yourself in the careening, musical mayhem of its streets, to experience it with every sense: it’s all there…the crowds, Times Square ‘s flashing billboards, street food, subways, non-stop noise. Mixed in is the struggle for survival among the increasing population of homeless and unemployed. Rats multiply; people protest. It's the human tragicomedy Lerner’s crafted poet’s voice has synthesized into urban art.
—Gerald Locklin, Professor Emeritus of English, CSU—Long Beach
Linda Lerner howls and sings weaving a rich, dynamic and colorful tapestry of words as seen through the prism of her deft poet's eye. She questions tragedy and pokes history in the eye, speaks to her nine lives of love and revels in the small ironies that keep the mystery alive and the jazz blowing giving us her sometimes tough, and ultimately tender heart, in the process.
—S. A. Griffin, Co-editor, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry
|
