New Releases by Julie Bruck

"How to Avoid Huge Ships, Julie Bruck''s fourth collection of poetry, is a book of arguments and spells against the ambushes of time. Parents grow down, children up, and it''s from the uncomfortable in-between that these poems peer into what Philip Larkin describes as "the long slide." But what if we haven''t reached the end of the infinite adolescence we thought we''d been promised? We''re still here in this world of flying ottomans, alongside a middle-schooler named Dow Jones, and the prehistoric miracle of a blue heron''s foot. We may be afraid, but we''re still amused--sometimes, even awed. Looking squarely at the way things are, glossing over none of the absurdities and injustices of contemporary life, Julie Bruck pays ardent attention to it all. The touch is light, even when the subject is heavy. One has a steady sense of being trusted to catch and feel the intangible muchness housed in these deceptively direct poems."--

Le regard compatissant et précis pour lequel ses livres précédents ont retenu l''attention se retrouve de nouveau dans le troisième recueil de Julie Bruck, La singerie (Monkey Ranch). Qu''est-ce qui est suffisant, qu''est-ce qui suffira ? C''est la question que posent tous les poèmes de ce recueil, qui mettent en scène un mandrill, une femme d''âge moyen, un quartier de Bagdad brisé, un mariage de longue durée et même une cuillère prise avec ce dilemme.--[Memento].

Poetry. "I have long considered Julie Bruck to be one of our most committed and humane voices. Bruck sees everything we do; she just seems to see it wiser. Her poems sing and roil with everything complicated and joyous we human monkeys are."--Cornelius Eady "MONKEY RANCH has all the antic sensuality and thrilling precision we''ve come to expect from Julie Bruck''s work. This volume has a pitch-perfect elegance that calms the ruckus just long enough for us to glimpse the vulnerability of everyone involved. MONKEY RANCH is like the best sort of letter from a friend--full of gossip, lively observation, and serious wit."--Sharon Thesen

With crisp, elegant language, sharp wit and resonant images, Julie Bruck''s new book gentles the largesse of life out of its many smallnesses. The way a straw buoys up in a can of pop, or a friend''s dress holds her shape, even on its hanger: Bruck textures her poetry with a life "you could close your hand around." Bruck''s is the urban world so many of us walk through, eyes closed. But Bruck''s eyes are wide open, keen and collecting. With teeth and heart, she cracks open the ordinary to reveal life''s love and loss, joy and fragility, its extraordinary fullness. "Like one of the characters in this book, you''ll be ''new to such abundance'' if you haven''t read Julie Bruck''s work before. I''ve been a fan since her first publication." - Lorna Crozier

In The Woman Downstairs, eloquence joins intimately with an attentive and hungry eye. Julie Bruck explores the accidents and acquaintances of life, its small coincidences and occurrences, its unexpected meetings. With a passionate distance, Bruck blends the outside observer''s cool embrace with a desire to know intensely life''s eccentric smallnesses, to gentle the beautiful out of the mundane. By turns witty and thoughtful, Bruck''s writing is always graceful, always a delight.