Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds: Poems

by Eleanor Lerman

Eleanor Lerman, whose last collection, The Mystery of Meteors (2001), was named by Library Journal as “Best of Poetry, 2001,” returns with a dazzling, funny, and seriously mature new book.

In Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds, Lerman boldly wrests contemporary mysticism from a hard-knock New York Jewish consciousness. She’s a solid witness to the 1960s, Cold War, Vietnam, sexual revolution, and drugs. However, in her favor, she’s traveled through baby boomer irony, bought the T-shirt, and found her way back.

Eleanor Lerman has been nominated for a National Book Award, received the inaugural Juniper Prize, and was the recipient of a fiction grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a lifelong New Yorker.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Eleanor Lerman is a writer who lives in New York. Her first book of poetry, Armed Love (Wesleyan University Press, 1973), published when she was twenty-one, was nominated for a National Book Award. She has since published four other award-winning collections of poetry—Come the Sweet By and By (University of Massachusetts Press, 1975); The Mystery of Meteors (Sarabande Books, 2001); Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds (Sarabande Books, 2005); and The Sensual World Re-Emerges (Sarabande Books, 2010), along with The Blonde on the Train (Mayapple Press, 2009) a collection of short stories. She was awarded the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and the Nation magazine for the year's most outstanding book of poetry for Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds and received a 2007 Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her first novel, Janet Planet, based on the life of Carlos Castaneda, was published by Mayapple Press in 2011. Her latest collection of poetry, Strange Life,was published by Mayapple in 2015. Since then, her novel, Radiomen (The Permanent Press, 2016) was awarded the John W. Campbell Prize for the Best Book of Science Fiction. Her next novel, The Stargazer's Embassy, was released in July 2017. Her most recent novel, Satellite Street, will be released in October 2019.

Reviews

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lerman is awesome. Her poems are conversational, like she's talking right to you. Maybe over pie and coffee, maybe in black boots, stillettos. She's one smart, somewhat brash, and very funny woman: "Liquid metal debris, alien hieroglyphics, ranch hands threatened by the goverment--/I love it all! I love Area 51!" (We're Ready in Roswell). So when you read the poems, you feel as if you've joined one heck of a discussion, and Lerman is not afraid to challenge you, either ("Where are You?" Lerman demands in "Why we Need to Start a Dialogue").

I loved how sassy this narrator is, but also how unflinching: "and yes, that sure is/ my little dog walking a hard road in hard boots. And/ just wait until you see my girl, chomping on the chains/ of fate with her mouth full of jagged steel. She's damn/ ready and so am I" (That Sure is My Little Dog). My favorite poems were about science, where Lerman got fanciful and--dare I say it?--spiritual: "And this is true: You are a stardust person" (Muons are Passing Through You). This poet is a hard-hitter but there's no navel-gazing here, she makes the things she thinks about Universal...and they are.

I didn't give this book 5 stars because I had to be honest. If I had grown up in the 50s, 60s, or 70s, I'm sure I would have connected to this book 100%. But I was born in 1980 in Los Angeles, so Nintendo, beaches, and the Simpsons make more sense to me than New York Jews, the Red Menace, and old Russian ladies. That's entirely personal and subjective, though. The book is highly recommended.

[Eric Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have lately been reading two spectacularly good books of poetry by women poets -- this one, and the marvelous "Modern Poetry" by Diane Seuss. Truly, it was sad to finish Lerman's wonderful volume (which I had read many years ago, the first time) because it is so, so good. I will be sad to finish the Seuss book, as well.

Among other things, I loved "Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds" because the title just resonates with me, a so-called "Cold War Kid" who grew up and lived through much of the US/Soviet tussle over world power -- played out against a backdrop of thermo-nuclear weaponry. I can relate to the somewhat stunned realization that, when Ronnie "ray gun" Reagan maneuvered Mikhail Gorbachev into ending decades of nuclear escalation, we wondered what we were going to do with a world that wasn't threatened with annihilation.

Lerman's meditations on art, Nuclear war, womanhood, Jewishness and politics are savvy, tart and sometimes very, very funny. For example, in the final poem of the volume, "Jews in New York" she observes

Jews in New York City like candy in fancy boxes.
They wish they had more money. They are working on
an invention to rid the world of rust. They are thoughtful,
wary and suspicious of God, who returns the favor.

A self-deprecating, yet perhaps accurate (?) depiction that ends with the line "If he's (God's) in a good/mood maybe he'll start to explain some of this."

Starting strong, and continuing through the body of the book, before ending on this wonderful final note, Lerman surveys our Post-Soviet landscape (sometimes through the eyes of older and newer Russian immigrants) with the afore-mentioned humor, but also with an incisive eye.

Even if you don't like, or love, poetry, give Lerman's book a shot. You won't regret it.

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry I actually wanted to read. My favorites were front-heavy:
Starfish: "And you wonder, is his a message, finally, or just another day?"
The Magellanic Clouds: "Loving us, loving us, loving us, the Small Magellanic Clod puzzles the astronomers because it seems to have no purpose. But we know better. We whisper its name to our children so they may be comforted."
Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds: "She would have crawled across Eastern Europe and fed that dog her own blood if she had to."

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

~2.75

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have not read Lerman before and this recent collection came to me in the mail by way of one of my poetry organization memberships. It was a very enjoyable volume to read, wry and reflective, funny and moving. “Starfish” and “The Drought Summer” are charmingly optimistic poems, “Living with the Red Menace,” a sharp skewering of history and of the madness of the 1950s and beyond. “Missing Person” is a frankly tough meditation on the past and family history. Lerman has a distinctive, conversational voice—though she is not of the generation of poetry slams, there is a punchiness to her poems that would stand her well in an East Village coffee shop or on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. But what most appeals to me is the ease of her perspective on a life reduced to a domestic universe: “Now in the morning, whoever / wakes first opens the door to let in the weather of / a new country. To see if the way is open. If the / coast is clear. If not, we make some sandwiches / and watch a movie. But if there is a chance, then / we will choose each other all over again before we / slip away.” Or, “Little Mayans, European blondes— / let us follow the route of the thunderbird that / flies before the storm, / Let us toss the ball, Let us outwit history, / At last, at last, let our game begin,” The last verse of this poem has the peculiar punctuation and capitalization you see…sentences that end in commas, not periods, with the next line beginning with a capital letter regardless. I will look for more from her.

[Kristen Northrup · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another poet discovered via the Writer's Almanac. The poem was Starfish, and I liked it enough to buy the whole book.

I enjoyed the whole thing. Similar to Tony Hoagland. A little more political. A little edgier.

Like another reviewer here, my other favorite was The Drought Summer. (About halfway down the following link.)



Will definitely buy The Mystery of Meteors too.

[Jamey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

She writes like I think - if I could verbalize my thoughts so well. "Women in Business" is insanely good.

[DilanAc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these poems. Ironic, understated, frisky. Thoroughly enjoyable.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 L616o 2005

[Sarabande Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winner of the 2006 Lenore Marshall Prize for the year's most outstanding book of poetry