A review poet Linda Lerner's new collection.

The Bowery and Other Poems.  Linda Lerner  ( March St. Press)  www.marchstreetpress.com  2004. $9.

 

 I remember when I was in my teens I ventured into the city from the tony suburbs of Long Island, to go slumming in the city. I remember seeing a young man sweeping a sidewalk outside a gone-to-seed bar in the Village. I asked him" Is the Bowery in this direction?" he replied "Sadl,." and nodded his head dejectedly. So for me the Bowery with its Flop Houses, its broken, discarded men, its off-limits allure, has always held a certain fascination. When Linda Lerner, a Brooklyn-based poet, sent me her collection "The Bowery and Other Poems," I knew I was going to revisit this neck of the woods through Lerner's well-honed skills as an observer, and thusly a poet.

 

 Throughout this collection Lerner probes the love, the loss, the loners,  of the "Naked City." The Bowery, I hear, has changed a great deal over the years, but the name "Bowery" has a certain name brand recognition for a certain side of life. This collection will help explain why.

 

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update