Product Description

"A Brief History of Time", Beers' first collection of poetry, is at once an exploration of what it is to grow up in rural America and a treatise for social justice. These poems, many of them award-winning, span a wide range of styles-from plainsong free verse to sestinas to nearly epic works. The characters/speakers in Beers' poems range from the rural working class to mythological characters. These poems look at the world with an honest, unflinching eye. She is one of the up-and-coming poets from Generation X we will be hearing a great deal from in the future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1000102 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 76 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781844715053
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

Honest, ironic, and at times, dark vision
I knew the author when, and I have a few real (and some long time) favorites in this collection. They are worth the price of admission alone.

"Sleeping Man and Woman..."-- This might be my favorite of all of the author's poems. I love the cool, observant eye she casts on universal subjects of love, death and suffering. Beers is at her best in these detached, knowing moments of observation.

"To CKC....": This is another powerful poem with an unexpected look at the safety that death can provide for some. I love the gentle and compassionate eye of the poet here. The last line is one that makes me catch my breath every time I read it; this poem is always new for me, and to me, that is one measure of great poetry.

"Rewind": Beers deftly joins the personal to the universal in this poem. The speaker presents the hard reality of decay and destruction unflinchingly and without sentimentality which might ruin such an honest look at existence.

"Body Shop": Again, we get Beers at her best: honest, ironic, dark, and unflinching. She joins the personal with the universal themes of women as property or parts of a whole and shows how ridiculous, but understood by all women, these notions truly are. I never tire of reading this one.

"In a Top Drawer": This one makes me shiver every time I read it, and it never gets old for me. The morbid vision of speaker as unwitting destroyer of life is a powerful one.

"Because You Are In It": This poem gives voice to a theme that I think many people are aware of but don't talk about for fear of seeming silly or strange... that thrill of every molecule of everything being part of the beloved (when in the throes of new love). I like this one.

I am excited to see how this poet expands on her clear and effective voice in the future.

Amazing
This is the most honest piece of work I have read in many years. Absolutely amazing is all I can really say.

A Brief History of Time
In A Brief History of Time, Shaindel Beers observes the passage of time from the vantage point of an unsure survivor. She tells stories of the inevitable events faced by humans for ages--stories of love, conflict, toil, poverty, illness, and death. She explores the body as a vehicle for living, but also speaks of its limitations and imperfections. Her juxtaposition of mythical, archetypal images with views of modern living reinforce the notion that, even as time passes, our human nature and condition remain largely unchanged--and that this is what connects us all.