"He's in the boat along with crazy Hungarian
aunts and Brooklyn grandfathers. But he's in the water more
and more, a large fish longing for the hook of truth."
- Robert Bly
"These are poems of clarity, wit and passion. the best of them are the equal
of anything being written now in America. In his first book of poems in 20 years,
Lou Lipsitz has again turned out splendid and evocative work.
- George Hitchcock
Lou Lipsitz...has written with an acute consciousness of men's’ issues
for many years....In poems spanning 30 years, SEEKING THE HOOK
demonstrates the depth and power of Lipsitz’ honesty and
toughness. In his story-telling, self-knowledge and lack of naivete,
Lipsitz is reminiscent of two other contemporary fabulists, David
Ignatow and Louis Jenkins. Every reader will find something here
to touch his or her heart with pain or delight.”
- From a review
in DRAGONSMOKE published by the Ally Press
which focuses on literature
related
to “men’s work”
So many poets begin in a a burst of glory - and then their subsequent
books are weaker and weaker. It is as if all they had to say,
all their originality went into the first book. The rest is imitation
and repetition. So it is a pleasure to encounter after a long
hiatus between books, these new and selected poems by Lou Lipsitz....The
new poems are bolder and fresher than anything he accomplished
before. Part of the freshness is his imagery; the fishhook of
the title poem is “a beautiful lie” too powerful
for the fish to resist. A middle-aged man experiencing spring
has an inner eye “Like the top of a convertible...drawn
back.” A brooding poet is “anxious like the patient
in the dentist’s chair about to get the injection, or the
welfare family waiting for the third eviction notice.” An
estranged husband trembles in his narrow bed “like an auto
part in a dusty box.”
Moreover his subject matter has broadened. Lipsitz is not your
usual MFA academic poet... The new poems deal with such topics
as divorce. abandonment, father-child relationships and male
bonding.
Lipsitz's separation and divorce obviously inspired a number
of these poems, and we follow a persona from pain and loneliness
to release.
SEEKING THE HOOK is a remarkable comeback from someone who obviously
never went away. It’s a book that was well worth the wait.
- Robert Phillips,
in THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Previous Books
"Of Lou Lipsitz' first volume little need be said except buy, read,
be
grateful, for this is the pure, renewing elixir,
200 proof, coming out of nowhere like children's wisdom...Lipsitz continually
gives us...outrageously predictable rightness..."
- Barry Spacks, POETRY
"This awareness, the quality of toughness, helps Lipsitz in his political
poems to overcome the mass of rhetoric that surrounds the issues...he penetrates
beyond the abstractions ...rediscovering the individual and his fate..."
- Charles Simic, kayak
"It is invigorating to read poetry from as sure a hand as Lipsitz...the
distinctive poet's mark is a quiet and often comical surrealism...At times
the poet seems
to defy the structures of the poems...and the scenarios proposed, while absurd
are pointed and meaningful."
