Silk Elegy

Rating:
Summary: Original and Lovely Poetry Book
Review: An original and compelling work- part poetry, part fiction, part history- beautifully and carefully crafted.

Rating:
Summary: a carefully crafted and compelling read
Review: Each of the 80 poems in Silk Elegy is capable of standing alone; yet together the poems weave a wonderful, heart-wrenching narrative, the story of the Bronskys who came to America in the early 1900's hoping to escape the anti-semitism of their native land and dreaming of a better life for their children. They settle in industrial Paterson, NJ, aka Silk City, where Morris Bronsky works in a mill and where his wife, Lena, slowly begins a tragic descent into serious mental illness. This story is told in multiple voices, the principal one that of the Bronskys' adolescent daughter, Faye. One of Gash's many literary virtues is her ability to capture each voice so that a personality is clearly rendered and to then show how each personality changes as time passes. The reader has the pleasure and the challenge of listening to each character and piecing together the whole fabric of the story.

This collection will appeal to readers with a love of story, to those interested in the history of industrial America and the immigrant experience, and to those who appreciate well-crafted poetry. Gash combines the skills of a fiction writer with the skills of a poet. The result is a unique and remarkable achievement, one that you will read and then read again.

Rating:
Summary: More than a Poetry Collection
Review: Silk Elegy is an unusual poetry book. Formally constructed as a sequence of lyrical poems, it employs the dramatic narrative techniques of the novel to make for both beautiful and compelling reading.

Narrated in different voices, the poems tell the experiences and ordeals of the Bronskys - an East-European family of Jewish Immigrants in Paterson, NJ, in the early 1900's. Into their particular saga of grief, madness and survival, the author seamlessly weaves glimpses of such larger themes as: the persecution of Jews in Eastern-Europe, the immigrants' life in America, the silk industry in Paterson, NJ, and the beginnings of the labor movement in the US.

Silk Elegy owes a large measure of its success to its author's skill as both storyteller and poet, i.e., to the juxtaposition between the book's dramatic elements and its lyrical sensibilities. Sondra Gash manages to unfold a compelling story, create three-dimensional and distinct characters, manipulate flashbacks, vividly evoke time and place, shift points of view, and poignantly weave historical background with the characters' personal incidents. It is a measure of her success as a storyteller that the reader's interest in the events as well as his sympathy for the characters are keenly sustained throughout the book.

But the most impressive feat of Silk Elegy is its author's ability to turn the Bronskys' story not only into lovely poetry, but poetry spoken in the distinctive voices of the different characters. She manages this, in part, through the sensitive manipulation of language and tone, the economy of narration highlighted by perceptive and evocative detail, the subtle yet sensuous imagery (especially the rich array of silk and weaving imagery which contributes to the book's strong sense of cohesion), and the musicality and rhythm of the poems, juxtaposed with the formal discipline of the verses.

Finally, the fine craftsmanship of the writing is complemented by CavanKerry Press's unusually appealing design - in particular the tasteful and elegant jacket.

Silk Elegy is a very graceful poetic account of persistence and survival - an affecting example of the great griefs and smaller joys and triumphs that make up our lives. At a time of much solipsistic and pedestrian poetry, Sondra Gash managed to weave out of the coarse strands of history and everyday life and the delicate threads of human emotions a beautiful, moving, and compelling tapestry.