Takes Guts and Years Sometimes: New and Selected Poems

Poetry. Linda Lerner's latest book, TAKES GUTS AND YEARS SOMETIMES, is a collection of poems dating from the early 80s to the present. An immigrant daughter's courageous search for her identity, her refusal to compromise who she is for a paycheck or for love is viewed in the backdrop of major public events. Upheavals in her personal life are paralleled by those in the larger world. There's the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the subsequent attack in 2001 six blocks from her home. This latter event triggers memories of stories her estranged father told about his escape from Russia. There are the hardships caused by gentrification. The locale is primarily New York City, but it could be any place, where the fault lines of vulnerability in individual lives suddenly give way to tremors outside, and the earth shifts beneath them.