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A review by jugglingpup
This Ecstasy They Call Damnation by Israel Wasserstein
5.0
To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.
I am not a fan of poetry. I have typed that warning before on here. It just has never been my genre. I have only recently started to see a whole new world of poetry that is so vastly different than what I had learned in school. I might not be able to keep that warning if I keep finding poets like Wasserstein.
The collection is short, like most poetry books seem to be. The interesting part is that after one read I felt incomplete, not because the poems weren’t enough, but but I needed to feel them again. I read each poem multiple times. There were a few that after the first read I immediately started reading it again to experience it again. I haven’t ever had that experience before. I never craved words again like this. Wasserstein has a command of language and my attention.
I wish I could compare the writing and the emotions to something or someone to help convey what I feel, but this is such a new experience and new emotions. I will give it a try, but nothing fits quite right. There were a few poems that gave me a deeper feeling than the graphic novels in the Essex County series. Essex County gave me this quaint feeling of disillusion and contentment with depression. Wasserstein’s poems gave me something deeper, but in the same vein. It has been so long since I have been at a loss of words about a positive reading experience.
The poems struck me as powerfully as The Sun and Her Flowers did, but in a way that felt less like I was learning Wasserstein through trauma, loss, love, and growth. Instead I felt like I was feeling and learning through a new language, despite English being my first language. Wasserstein made English feel alive in a way I have never read before (I am sorry for how many times I have said never in this review, I swear it will never happen again. Too soon?).
I am just so thrilled to have loved this book as much as I do. I have had the great luck of meeting Wasserstein and finding out that this book exists (as well as more!). Once I get up the nerve I am going to ask for a signed copy for my collection.
I am not a fan of poetry. I have typed that warning before on here. It just has never been my genre. I have only recently started to see a whole new world of poetry that is so vastly different than what I had learned in school. I might not be able to keep that warning if I keep finding poets like Wasserstein.
The collection is short, like most poetry books seem to be. The interesting part is that after one read I felt incomplete, not because the poems weren’t enough, but but I needed to feel them again. I read each poem multiple times. There were a few that after the first read I immediately started reading it again to experience it again. I haven’t ever had that experience before. I never craved words again like this. Wasserstein has a command of language and my attention.
I wish I could compare the writing and the emotions to something or someone to help convey what I feel, but this is such a new experience and new emotions. I will give it a try, but nothing fits quite right. There were a few poems that gave me a deeper feeling than the graphic novels in the Essex County series. Essex County gave me this quaint feeling of disillusion and contentment with depression. Wasserstein’s poems gave me something deeper, but in the same vein. It has been so long since I have been at a loss of words about a positive reading experience.
The poems struck me as powerfully as The Sun and Her Flowers did, but in a way that felt less like I was learning Wasserstein through trauma, loss, love, and growth. Instead I felt like I was feeling and learning through a new language, despite English being my first language. Wasserstein made English feel alive in a way I have never read before (I am sorry for how many times I have said never in this review, I swear it will never happen again. Too soon?).
I am just so thrilled to have loved this book as much as I do. I have had the great luck of meeting Wasserstein and finding out that this book exists (as well as more!). Once I get up the nerve I am going to ask for a signed copy for my collection.