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Nerve Storm
"Your thoughts become fluid, volatile; their aroma fills the room. This is a nerve storm."
In her first collection since Bitter Angel , winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award, Amy Gerstler explores themes of suffering and redemption through a heady blend of folklore, popular culture, and the natural world in Nerve Storm . The poet Eileen Myles has said that "the supernatural, the sexy mundane, the out-of-sight are simply [Gerstler's] materials, employed as they might be in a piece of religious art." A crackling wit and whimsical instinct guide this collection as Gerstler traipses through humanity's triumphs and blunders, effortlessly revealing the surreal and surprising possibilities inherent in everyday life.
In her first collection since Bitter Angel , winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award, Amy Gerstler explores themes of suffering and redemption through a heady blend of folklore, popular culture, and the natural world in Nerve Storm . The poet Eileen Myles has said that "the supernatural, the sexy mundane, the out-of-sight are simply [Gerstler's] materials, employed as they might be in a piece of religious art." A crackling wit and whimsical instinct guide this collection as Gerstler traipses through humanity's triumphs and blunders, effortlessly revealing the surreal and surprising possibilities inherent in everyday life.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
1 person is currently reading
54 people want to read
About the author
Amy Gerstler
34 books72 followersKnown for its wit and complexity, Amy Gerstler's poetry deals with themes such as redemption, suffering, and survival. Author of over a dozen poetry collections, two works of fiction, and various articles, reviews, and collaborations with visual artists, Gerstler won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Bitter Angel (1990). Her early work, including White Marriage/Recovery (1984), was highly praised. Gerstler's more recent works include Nerve Storm (1993), Medicine (2000), Ghost Girl (2004), Dearest Creature (2009), which the New York Times named a Notable Book of the Year, and Scattered At Sea (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Born in 1956, Gerstler is a graduate of Pitzer College and holds an M.F.A. from Bennington College. She is now a professor in the MFA writing program at the University of California, Irvine. Previously, she taught in the Bennington Writing Seminars program, at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program. She lives in California with her husband, the artist and author Benjamin Weissman.
Born in 1956, Gerstler is a graduate of Pitzer College and holds an M.F.A. from Bennington College. She is now a professor in the MFA writing program at the University of California, Irvine. Previously, she taught in the Bennington Writing Seminars program, at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program. She lives in California with her husband, the artist and author Benjamin Weissman.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 26, 2022
To remember your older
brother's bloodstained
mattress, pajamas
and bleeding being burned
in the backyard
in the middle of winter -
bu to recall this
only subconsciously,
and to sleepwalk
because of it.
To lie awake.
To have a fit
of the shoulders
in public. To lose
the ability to speak
or a few minutes.
To be warmed by random
bursts of anger.
To hear someone crying
or having sex in the next room
in a remote desert motel.
To cover one's ears.
To observe the kitchen
curtains fluttering oddly
one breezeless evening
and wonder whose spirit
is visiting this time.
To half hope it's Tim,
who spoke so energetically
about Charles Dickens
from his hospital bed.
To call Tim's bravery
and limber eloquence
to mind, his late
pendulum swing
toward religion,
left open-ended
at the time of his swift
physical conversion.
To say to the waving
curtain (a white eyelet
Tim might have liked),
"What a beautiful form
your soul has taken,"
and to watch them
go instantly limp.
* * *
An empty archive, my place in his heart's
an ill-lit ventricle whose walls heave
like the walls of a gasping man's chest.
This cell's low ceiling is dark soft-palate
pink. Giant photos of dead legends
autographed with cryptic endearments
serve as decor and as oracle:
they must tell our whole story.
I curl up on the floor in a corner
and watch dust motes mate a best they can.
Past blunders echo. Thuds and barks
sound the first bars of a rousing anthem
for the newly exhumed, my lullaby for tonight.
The tune's praised in braille
by tiny myopic stars who blink fiercely
and X-ray the earth at the same time,
reading its molten innards like soothsayers
or distant clinicians, bu keeping mum
about what they learn.
* * *
His filament-thin smile
is the type often seen
on the lips of an infant
with a full bladder, or gas.
Or, his smirk can resemble
the jerky, erratic line
of an electrocardiogram,
sketched in between
the nose and chin
of a young mother
who's just learned
she's got heart
trouble. This muse
never received proper
dental care when young.
Consequently, some of his
teeth have "jumped ship" -
his quaint phrase.
Unforgiving as blisters,
he's as wretched
as the skinny magician's
assistant he invented
to weigh on my mind.
She lies quietly
in her false coffin,
only her head and feet
visible. She tries
to relax while her tuxedoed
boss, a sweaty, uncertain
man who doesn't know chalk
from cheese, proceeds
to saw her in half.
* * *
One feels like an animal
pacing its filthy cave.
Bits of bone litter the floor.
The rusty smell of turning meat
festoons the stagnant air.
One begins to think all action
leads to grief. Joints stiffen.
Arthritis prefigures rigor mortis.
The light is silver this late
in the year, razorlike, expedient,
on the verge of turning,
like that meat mentioned earlier.
Animals are happy on days like today.
Blessings melt down upon postmodern
heads, copious as flocks
of white-winged religious tracts
fluttering south for the winter,
illustrated with watercolours
of adults, children and dogs greeting
dead friends in the afterlife.
How could anybody be glum
in this superlative weather? Well,
I'll tell you. The day is a young
bubble, with a tiny fire at its core.
My four brothers and I were accidentally
shrunk to the size of ants this afternoon
by our bumbling garage-inventor daddy.
Now we're trapped inside the bubble
as it rises, weaving, on Dad's breaths
and mischievous breezes, floating toward
that open window. Bye.
* * *
Destiny's darling, they wandered through the rubble in evening clothes; dazed, bruised, holding hands.
She said I could watch them do it if I liked, without being seen.
Forget the crumpled leaves and the sugary snow; separate yourself from them. You can't go back there.
The priest spent the day watering the trees outside the rectory; they had been dead for some time.
Being drunk at noon seemed to fill him up, make him feel less sketchy.
Let's be more specific about what we mean by "punishment."
He eyed his customers and wished they would leave.
I am trying to change my spiritual batteries, he said, closing his eyes and letting his mouth fall open, as though he were going to sing.
Why are giant women more frightening than giant men?
You're eating something and a tooth snaps off.
Look on me as a figure of speech you no longer use.
Can't you head me calling?
* * *
Even given infinite full moons,
nights pockmarked with stars,
we'd never find
all those damaged boys,
patch them up,
dribble water on their lips,
and rush them back
to the tent hospital in time.
It was like trying to gather
every last pearl
after a necklace breaks . . .
between smoky yellow explosions,
with the ground going rubbery
every few seconds,
we could only locate
the ones that groaned.
Babbling, we carried them,
ducking between trees rammed
into the ground about
as far apart as coffin nails,
and providing almost as much
cover. Poplars and beeches
escalated into a riot
of irony, quaking with scorn
for us and elongating
till they penetrated
the hymen of the sky
and became too green to see.
* * *
The undertaker's son imitates certain birds perfectly.
He resembles a well-made scarecrow.
I feel like I've swallowed rocks when I first catch sight of him.
He has a good head for figures.
He is distant by preference.
He says, "Everybody's in their own world anyway."
He stoops because his height embarrasses him.
We sit on his front lawn, the white pillars rising behind us.
We sometimes lie down on the dry grass.
He muses, "Why am I like this?"
He's very attached to his spaniel.
I have seen him smile only while reading.
He cares for me but objects to the way I dress.
He suffers from vertigo and ringing in his ears.
He says his father goes off on boring diatribes.
We discuss some unusual murders in the news.
I met his mother.
She's the kitchen's prisoner.
He was locked up somewhere, too.
I was the one who discovered him, oh yes . . .
I recognized him long before anyone else did.
* * *
When empty of light,
transformation can take place,
occasionally. For example,
in the faint oasis after vast
pain. Rude philosopher armed
with a cheerful spirit, nothing
you chew up and spit out dulls
your teeth, nor even me. This time
around, I'm the hum you almost
don't hear in the darkened room
you nap in after sexual exertion.
I surround you, bu am nothing
you could touch. I might be described
as a vestige or undertone; a ringing
in your fourth, sixth, and eighth
ears . . . the pin a doctor sticks
in the foot sole of your conscience
to test if it's dead yet.
brother's bloodstained
mattress, pajamas
and bleeding being burned
in the backyard
in the middle of winter -
bu to recall this
only subconsciously,
and to sleepwalk
because of it.
To lie awake.
To have a fit
of the shoulders
in public. To lose
the ability to speak
or a few minutes.
To be warmed by random
bursts of anger.
To hear someone crying
or having sex in the next room
in a remote desert motel.
To cover one's ears.
To observe the kitchen
curtains fluttering oddly
one breezeless evening
and wonder whose spirit
is visiting this time.
To half hope it's Tim,
who spoke so energetically
about Charles Dickens
from his hospital bed.
To call Tim's bravery
and limber eloquence
to mind, his late
pendulum swing
toward religion,
left open-ended
at the time of his swift
physical conversion.
To say to the waving
curtain (a white eyelet
Tim might have liked),
"What a beautiful form
your soul has taken,"
and to watch them
go instantly limp.
- French Leave, in memory of Tim Dlugos, pg. 10-11
* * *
An empty archive, my place in his heart's
an ill-lit ventricle whose walls heave
like the walls of a gasping man's chest.
This cell's low ceiling is dark soft-palate
pink. Giant photos of dead legends
autographed with cryptic endearments
serve as decor and as oracle:
they must tell our whole story.
I curl up on the floor in a corner
and watch dust motes mate a best they can.
Past blunders echo. Thuds and barks
sound the first bars of a rousing anthem
for the newly exhumed, my lullaby for tonight.
The tune's praised in braille
by tiny myopic stars who blink fiercely
and X-ray the earth at the same time,
reading its molten innards like soothsayers
or distant clinicians, bu keeping mum
about what they learn.
- My Place In His Heart, pg. 21
* * *
His filament-thin smile
is the type often seen
on the lips of an infant
with a full bladder, or gas.
Or, his smirk can resemble
the jerky, erratic line
of an electrocardiogram,
sketched in between
the nose and chin
of a young mother
who's just learned
she's got heart
trouble. This muse
never received proper
dental care when young.
Consequently, some of his
teeth have "jumped ship" -
his quaint phrase.
Unforgiving as blisters,
he's as wretched
as the skinny magician's
assistant he invented
to weigh on my mind.
She lies quietly
in her false coffin,
only her head and feet
visible. She tries
to relax while her tuxedoed
boss, a sweaty, uncertain
man who doesn't know chalk
from cheese, proceeds
to saw her in half.
- My Muse, pg. 30
* * *
One feels like an animal
pacing its filthy cave.
Bits of bone litter the floor.
The rusty smell of turning meat
festoons the stagnant air.
One begins to think all action
leads to grief. Joints stiffen.
Arthritis prefigures rigor mortis.
The light is silver this late
in the year, razorlike, expedient,
on the verge of turning,
like that meat mentioned earlier.
Animals are happy on days like today.
Blessings melt down upon postmodern
heads, copious as flocks
of white-winged religious tracts
fluttering south for the winter,
illustrated with watercolours
of adults, children and dogs greeting
dead friends in the afterlife.
How could anybody be glum
in this superlative weather? Well,
I'll tell you. The day is a young
bubble, with a tiny fire at its core.
My four brothers and I were accidentally
shrunk to the size of ants this afternoon
by our bumbling garage-inventor daddy.
Now we're trapped inside the bubble
as it rises, weaving, on Dad's breaths
and mischievous breezes, floating toward
that open window. Bye.
- A Sinking Feeling, pg. 41
* * *
Destiny's darling, they wandered through the rubble in evening clothes; dazed, bruised, holding hands.
She said I could watch them do it if I liked, without being seen.
Forget the crumpled leaves and the sugary snow; separate yourself from them. You can't go back there.
The priest spent the day watering the trees outside the rectory; they had been dead for some time.
Being drunk at noon seemed to fill him up, make him feel less sketchy.
Let's be more specific about what we mean by "punishment."
He eyed his customers and wished they would leave.
I am trying to change my spiritual batteries, he said, closing his eyes and letting his mouth fall open, as though he were going to sing.
Why are giant women more frightening than giant men?
You're eating something and a tooth snaps off.
Look on me as a figure of speech you no longer use.
Can't you head me calling?
- Losing Heart, pg. 54
* * *
Even given infinite full moons,
nights pockmarked with stars,
we'd never find
all those damaged boys,
patch them up,
dribble water on their lips,
and rush them back
to the tent hospital in time.
It was like trying to gather
every last pearl
after a necklace breaks . . .
between smoky yellow explosions,
with the ground going rubbery
every few seconds,
we could only locate
the ones that groaned.
Babbling, we carried them,
ducking between trees rammed
into the ground about
as far apart as coffin nails,
and providing almost as much
cover. Poplars and beeches
escalated into a riot
of irony, quaking with scorn
for us and elongating
till they penetrated
the hymen of the sky
and became too green to see.
- The Stretcher-Bearers, pg. 69
* * *
The undertaker's son imitates certain birds perfectly.
He resembles a well-made scarecrow.
I feel like I've swallowed rocks when I first catch sight of him.
He has a good head for figures.
He is distant by preference.
He says, "Everybody's in their own world anyway."
He stoops because his height embarrasses him.
We sit on his front lawn, the white pillars rising behind us.
We sometimes lie down on the dry grass.
He muses, "Why am I like this?"
He's very attached to his spaniel.
I have seen him smile only while reading.
He cares for me but objects to the way I dress.
He suffers from vertigo and ringing in his ears.
He says his father goes off on boring diatribes.
We discuss some unusual murders in the news.
I met his mother.
She's the kitchen's prisoner.
He was locked up somewhere, too.
I was the one who discovered him, oh yes . . .
I recognized him long before anyone else did.
- The One For Me, pg. 73
* * *
When empty of light,
transformation can take place,
occasionally. For example,
in the faint oasis after vast
pain. Rude philosopher armed
with a cheerful spirit, nothing
you chew up and spit out dulls
your teeth, nor even me. This time
around, I'm the hum you almost
don't hear in the darkened room
you nap in after sexual exertion.
I surround you, bu am nothing
you could touch. I might be described
as a vestige or undertone; a ringing
in your fourth, sixth, and eighth
ears . . . the pin a doctor sticks
in the foot sole of your conscience
to test if it's dead yet.
- When Empty Of Light, pg. 83
April 20, 2008
Amy Gerstler is one of my favorite living poets. It's the mixture of dark humor, sensuality, her imagination, and she just has that essence of putting words down on a page that looks beautiful. I am waiting for the collected works! Surely there is one in the making.
November 8, 2021
Not sure why the Tumblr children aren't obsessed with Amy Gerstler and her preoccupations with monstrosity and illness, things the Tumblr children love. Instead it's Richard Siken this and You're in a car with a beautiful boy that. Gerstler GETS it, you know?
April 13, 2014
A real gem of a book. Amy is hit or miss in other books she has done this one really has some great spot on hits. She has tis ability to get to the heart of the human condition on filled with imperfect thoughts and deeds.
February 11, 2021
This collection by Gerstler has her long poems that can alternate between grim, sensual, and hilarious. This is Gerstler's gig, but she is really good at it here. This can be a nerve storm of long, weird monologues.
January 21, 2008
Amy Gerstler writes like someone who has been to far away lands, seen giants and elves, and still feels sheepish about it. I adore her.
December 13, 2015
Gerstler remains one of my favorite contemporary poets.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews