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oliviak07's review
3.0
I came across Erika Meitner through an advertisement for one of her upcoming lectures that will be held in my home town. Luckily I was able to track down this collection of hers at the public library, and found it to say a lot about the author I hope to hear in person come this spring.
The intriguing thing about Meitner's "Ideal Cities" was how I felt a stronger connection and understanding to her words based on the imagery it brought to mind, instead of the shared understanding of her subtext. While some of the poems required a tad more effort to decipher and comprehend, there were those that were rather revolutionary yet all too familiar.
Despite the stretch I had to make in reading and re-reading her work, I would still recommend this collection for anyone who is looking to take a step further into the diversity and intensity of poetry.
The intriguing thing about Meitner's "Ideal Cities" was how I felt a stronger connection and understanding to her words based on the imagery it brought to mind, instead of the shared understanding of her subtext. While some of the poems required a tad more effort to decipher and comprehend, there were those that were rather revolutionary yet all too familiar.
Despite the stretch I had to make in reading and re-reading her work, I would still recommend this collection for anyone who is looking to take a step further into the diversity and intensity of poetry.
honeydewfelon's review
5.0
This was my second book of Meitner’s poetry after Holy Moly Land. I love her poetry, the way she writes about family, inheritance, motherhood, and place. These poems are easy to read—easy in that you are instant drawn in and don’t want to put the book down.
serenaac's review
3.0
Ideal Cities by Erika Meitner, whom I interviewed in 2009, was published in 2010 by Harper Perennial as part of the National Poetry Series selected by Paul Guest. The collection is broken down into two sections: Rental Towns and Ideal Cities. Rental towns appears to be at first glance about the transient nature of apartment or rental living, but on a deeper level its about the transient nature of our lives and how quickly we all want to grow up and become adults. There zipping through memories and moments reminds us that our childhood moves too quickly and so innocence is gone before we realize it. “The windows on the soon-to-be luxury/condos across the way say things/to the darkness I can’t hear. Sometimes/they’re blocked by the train masticating/its way across town. Now and then//” (from Vinyl-Sided Epiphany, page 5-6)
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/08/ideal-cities-by-erika-meitner.html
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/08/ideal-cities-by-erika-meitner.html
p_tremuloides's review against another edition
5.0
Loved the first section of this book of poetry, "Rental Towns," in part because the poems flowed like Matthew Dickman's--taking these very real moments and turning them into captured moments full of poeticism, full of the beauty of the fleeting.
The second section took a more religious view and the poems seemed, to me, more forced, less grounded (overall) in the real. That being said, I only skipped one poem in this entire book and that poem was in the second section where I just couldn't root myself in the poem or the form and certainly not for 3-4 pages.
Meitner reminds us that some stories are not ours to tell and in so many of these poems promotes gentleness without being "wooey"
From the title poem:
...In the ideal city
my neighbor is a taxi driver.
My neighbor is at sea.
My neighbor thinks
his house is haunted
while his wife's away
on business. My neighbor
gives a robber a glass
of Chateau Malescot St-Exupery
and a hug. In the ideal city my neighbors
are a multi-generational
family & one guy
who puts chairs
in the street
to save a spot
for our moving truck.
The second section took a more religious view and the poems seemed, to me, more forced, less grounded (overall) in the real. That being said, I only skipped one poem in this entire book and that poem was in the second section where I just couldn't root myself in the poem or the form and certainly not for 3-4 pages.
Meitner reminds us that some stories are not ours to tell and in so many of these poems promotes gentleness without being "wooey"
From the title poem:
...In the ideal city
my neighbor is a taxi driver.
My neighbor is at sea.
My neighbor thinks
his house is haunted
while his wife's away
on business. My neighbor
gives a robber a glass
of Chateau Malescot St-Exupery
and a hug. In the ideal city my neighbors
are a multi-generational
family & one guy
who puts chairs
in the street
to save a spot
for our moving truck.
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