Linda Lerner's latest book, TAKES GUTS AND YEARS SOMETIMES, is a collection of poems dating from the early 80's 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....

YES, THE DUCKS WERE REAL deals with relationships of all kinds, as well as, what goes into day-to-day survival--things that concern everyone and things everyone can relate to. In these poems Lerner goes from being an observer, as in "The Girls from Hell," to focusing on her own life, which she has successfully mythologized in order to reflect on our fast changing times. YES, THE DUCKS WERE REAL is a collection of modern tales that will have you reading and relating and reverberating into your own mind's mythologies.