Mayakovsky

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Mary Rose O'Reilley

"At midlife, Mary Rose O'Reilley reflects on her past and her hard-won sense of self. She is determined, now, not to sacrifice or waste her self. She has struggled for years along the paths set by her suburban childhood, her Catholic upbringing, her failed marriage, and the mute duties of daughterhood. Now, she is trying to see the world through the eyes of the deer that stop outside her window and look in at her. As a wildlife rehabilitator, she feels a closer connection to the natural world as experienced by animals. As an apprentice potter, she sees in a Japanese tea bowl the ultimate balance of action and contemplation. As a Quaker, she can both sit still and sing. And as a writer, O'Reilley can speak clearly to readers at midlife who are expected to know it all, but don't."--Jacket.

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Anatol Goldberg

Pp. 120-123 deal with Ehrenburg's attitudes to Judaism and antisemitism as reflected in the discourse on the Jewish question in his first novel "Julio Jurenito" (1922). States that in general he tried to view the world from a genuinely cosmopolitan standpoint. The Jews are described by Jurenito as a people who constantly question the established order and try to undermine it by inventing subversive religions (e.g., Christianity, communism) which eventually become the established order and must then be repudiated. Ehrenburg was proud of this tragic and unique destiny of the Jews, who were persecuted because of it, and he was opposed to a nationalist solution (Zionism). Pp. 226-240 deal with Stalin's postwar anti-Jewish campaign, and Ehrenburg's role as the regime's "token Jew, " a cover for its antisemitic policies. States that there is no evidence that Ehrenburg betrayed his Jewish friends who were murdered by Stalin, but faults him for lying about what was happening to them at the time.

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Linda Leavell

A mesmerizing and essential biography of the modernist poet Marianne Moore. The Marianne Moore that survives in the popular imagination is dignified, white-haired, and demure in her tricorne hat; she lives with her mother until the latter's death; she maintains meaningful friendships with fellow poets but never marries or falls in love. Linda Leavell's Holding On Upside Down--the first biography of this major American poet written with the support of the Moore estate--delves beneath the surface of this calcified image to reveal a passionate, canny woman caught between genuine devotion to her mother and an irrepressible desire for personal autonomy and freedom. Her many poems about survival are not just quirky nature studies but acts of survival themselves. Not only did the young poet join the Greenwich Village artists and writers who wanted to overthrow all her mother's pieties but she also won their admiration for the radical originality of her language and the technical proficiency of her verse. After her mother's death thirty years later, the aging recluse transformed herself, against all expectations, into a charismatic performer and beloved celebrity. She won virtually every literary prize available to her and was widely hailed as America's greatest living poet. Elegantly written, meticulously researched, critically acute, and psychologically nuanced, Holding On Upside Down provides at last the biography that this major poet and complex personality deserves.

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Paul W. Ogden

Paul W. Ogden has dedicated his life to educating young deaf and hard of hearing people and raising awareness of what it means to be deaf in a hearing world. He has taught and mentored a generation of teachers, and his classic volume, The Silent Garden, has served as a guide for parents and educators for over thirty years. Now he tells his personal story of challenges faced and lessons learned, revealing that the critical, guiding factors for him have always been language and successful communication.