Son of a Holocaust survivor, Jason Sommer writes of troubles that unfold at the intersection of history made and personality in making, of self and other, of wakefulness and sleep. His world is post-Holocaust, and the poetic voice in this book is one which emerges from that calamity, telling the stories of those who have finally begun to speak to him, and now through him. As a survivor's child, Sommer must consider how to live in the wake of history, among those who are indelibly marked by it.
Son of a Holocaust survivor, Jason Sommer writes of troubles that unfold at the intersection of history made and personality in making, of self and ot...
Near the beginning, just after the fall, was laughter at least as Jason Sommer imagines it. In the title poem, Eve catches Adam s hilarity over what passes for a tree outside of Eden, their laughter a heady combination of longing, defiance, and perhaps even relief, through which they find they now possess a knowledge of evil that is good, an understanding that will carry them through life after paradise. Through settings mythical, historical and biblical, through characters that range from Gunga Din to St. Kevin of Glendalough, the poems in this book often search out meaning in the tracing of...
Near the beginning, just after the fall, was laughter at least as Jason Sommer imagines it. In the title poem, Eve catches Adam s hilarity over what p...