Natural Selections
$16.00
Bombshelter Press, 2004 120pp
ISBN: 0-941017-26-5
Elaine Mintzer's Natural Selections is a collection of 89 poems about choices. From "pinched fingers, bad movies, . . . chicken or pizza again" ("Mercy"), to the religious proportions of a misplaced piece of paper in "Grail," to the intentional amnesia surrounding the loss of a parent, this poet has an eye for the lushness of daily life and the ironic humor of loss. Mintzer has been published in a number of literary journals, and she has been anthologized in 13 Los Angeles Poets. Her work celebrates the process by which we make it through each day.
The Author
- Elaine Mintzer
- Elaine Mintzer was born in Los Angeles, and lived most of her childhood in the San Fernando Valley. After a year abroad, she got degrees in English and Education at cross-town rival schools UCLA and USC. She still lives in the suburbs of Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and a variety of pets. She has had work published in a number of magazines,including Spillway, ONTHEBUS, Cold-drill, Rohwedder, Pearl, Shiela-na-gig, and West/Word. Ms. Mintzer wrote poetry for, and read with the dance performance in Miami Beach of the dance company Ballet Randolph. She has recently returned to teaching.
Review
Elaine Mintzer's voice moves confidently through a range of tones--delight, lament, and wry observation, to name only a few. Here, memory, intelligence, and love investigate powerfully the ways in which the past both eludes and completes the present.
Jan Wilkotz, Professor of English, Towson U