Ghost Girl

Description

Sly and sophisticated, direct, playful, and profound, Amy Gerstler's new collection highlights her distinctive poetic style. In thirty-seven poems, using a variety of dramatic voices and visual techniques, she finds meaning in unexpected places, from a tour of a doll hospital to an ad for a CD of Beethoven symphonies to an earthy exploration of toast. Gerstler's abiding interests-in love and mourning, in science and pseudoscience, in the idea of an afterlife, in seances and magic-are all represented here. Entertaining and erudite, complex yet accessible, these poems will enhance Gerstler's reputation as an important contemporary poet.

Amy Gerstler is a writer of fiction, poetry, and journalism whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including the Paris Review and Best American Poetry. Her 1990 book Bitter Angel won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Previous titles from Penguin are Crown of Weeds, 1997, and Nerve Storm, 1993.

?[Gerstler] has created a singular body of work, at once witty, daring, and full of pathos.... She is the wisecracker in the face of the inexplicable.? ("Los Angeles Times") a[Gerstler] has created a singular body of work, at once witty, daring, and full of pathos.... She is the wisecracker in the face of the inexplicable.a ("Los Angeles Times") [Gerstler] has created a singular body of work, at once witty, daring, and full of pathos.... She is the wisecracker in the face of the inexplicable. ("Los Angeles Times") "[Gerstler] has created a singular body of work, at once witty, daring, and full of pathos.... She is the wisecracker in the face of the inexplicable." ("Los Angeles Times") "[Gerstler] has created a singular body of work, at once witty, daring, and full of pathos. . . . She is the wisecracker in the face of the inexplicable."