Spotlight: Slim Blue Universe: Poems by Eleanor Lerman
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Slim Blue Universe is the seventh collection of poetry from acclaimed author Eleanor Lerman. Her work speaks to us in different voices—the Woodstock generation grown older, social activists still raging at the powers that be, lovers remembering days of paradise, and lonely dreamers still dreaming of better days to come—that weave together both the joys of life and its many afflictions. The poems in this collection ache with longing for what has been lost along the journey through a life shaped by the volatile middle years of the 20th century and with a yearning to look beyond the human horizon to whatever mysterious pathways may lie just up ahead. As poet Kevin Patrick Sullivan has noted, Lerman’s work is a guidebook for learning to understand “[W]here we have been, how it has been along the way and where we might be going. There is joy in the recognition and yet something unnerving. Whether dealing with the large truths of this life or the small daily occurrences these poems remind us of our human ambiguity—we are all over the place; life is hard; life is good; life is what life does, moment by moment and that is the challenge she presents us: to string the good moments together, breath after breath, now and forever.”
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About the Author
With a career now spanning more than 50 years, Eleanor Lerman has published numerous award-winning collections of poetry, short stories, and novels. One of the youngest people ever to be named a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry, she also won the inaugural Juniper Prize from the University of Massachusetts Press and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Poets, among other accolades. In addition, her fiction has been recognized with numerous awards including the John W. Campbell Award for Best Book of Science Fiction and being shortlisted for The Chautauqua Prize. She has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship for poetry as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts for poetry and the New York Foundation for the Arts for fiction. Her most recent work, The Game Café: Stories of New York City in Covid Time (Mayapple Press, December 2022), won the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award and was nominated for the W.S. Porter Prize. Her seventh collection of poetry Slim Blue Universe will be published by Mayapple Press in February 2024. Find her online at eleanorlerman.com and on Facebook (facebook.com/eleanor.lerman).
