Amy Gerstler
Known for its wit and complexity, Amy Gerstler's poetry deals with themes such as redemption, suffering, and survival. Author of over a dozen poetry collections, two works of fiction, and various articles, reviews, and collaborations with visual artists, Gerstler won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Bitter Angel (1990). Her early work, including White Marriage/Recovery (1984), was highly praised. Gerstler's more recent works include Nerve Storm (1993), Medicine (2000), Ghost Girl (2004), Dearest Creature (2009), which the New York Times named a Notable Book of the Year, and Scattered At Sea (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Born in 1956, Gerstler is a graduate of Pitzer College and holds an M.F.A. from Bennington College. She is now a professor in the MFA writing program at the University of California, Irvine. Previously, she taught in the Bennington Writing Seminars program, at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program. She lives in California with her husband, the artist and author Benjamin Weissman.
“Thin ribbons of fear snake bluely through you like a system of rivers. We need a cloudburst or soothing landscape fast, to still this panic. Maybe a field of dracaena, or a vast stand of sugar pines—generous, gum-yielding trees—to fill our minds with vegetable wonder and keep dread at bay.”
“Love doesn't reside in the heart, anyway. Love resides in the liver along with jaundice.”
“DomesticWhere's the wisdom in erasing a loved one's mess,so akin to his signature? Your honor, I only meantto strew the immaculate in his wake. To wipe the pathahead and behind reasonably clean. Futile, yes,but weren't such gestures essential to love's disciplineonce upon a time? Daily, I harvested dropped fruit peelsand socks. I chased him through life with dustpanand broom, smoothed his body dents from the bed,soothed the mud tramped floors. Did I sin in this?Better to leave the habitat sweetly reeking of himthan to spend years scrubbing up evidence of his existence.Archaelogists centuries hence may marvel at such relics:his mustard stained napkins, toothpicks chewedto splinters. Never let it be said that in my zeal to clean I robbed the future's museums. Whoam I to call what flies to either side of the trailhe blazes--half read magazines, cups of scummedover coffee and mashed out cigarettes--dirt?”
“Fuck You Poem #45Fuck you in slang and conventional English.Fuck you in lost and neglected lingoes.Fuck you hungry and sated; faded, pock marked, and defaced.Fuck you with orange rind, fennel and anchovy paste.Fuck you with rosemary and thyme, and fried green olives on the side.Fuck you humidly and icily.Fuck you farsightedly and blindly.Fuck you nude and draped in stolen finery.Fuck you while cells divide wildly and birds trill.Thank you for barring me from his bedside while he was ill.Fuck you puce and chartreuse.Fuck you postmodern and prehistoric.Fuck you under the influence of opiun, codeine, laudanum, and paregoric.Fuck every real and imagined country you fancied yourself princess of.Fuck you on feast days and fast days, below and above.Fuck you sleepless and shaking for nineteen nights running.Fuck you ugly and fuck you stunning.Fuck you shipwrecked on the barren island of your bed.Fuck you marching in lockstep in the ranks of the dead.Fuck you at low and high tide.And fuck you astride anyone who has the bad luck to fuck you, in dank hallways, bathrooms, or kitchens.Fuck you in gasps and whispered benedictions.And fuck these curses, however heartfelt and true,that bind me, till I forgive you, to you.”
“Advice from a CaterpillarChew your way into a new world.Munch leaves. Molt. Rest. Moltagain. Self-reinvention is everything.Spin many nests. Cultivate stingingbristles. Don't get sentimentalabout your discarded skins. Growquickly. Develop a yen for nettles.Alternate crumpling and climbing. Relyon your antennae. Sequester poisonsin your body for use at a later date.When threatened, emit foul odorsin self-defense. Behave cryptically to confuse predators: change colors, spit,or feign death. If all else fails, taste terrible.”
“The throat is a road.”