Nerve Storm

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"Your thoughts become fluid, volatile; their aroma fills the room. This is a nerve storm."

In her first collection since Bitter Angel, winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award, Amy Gerstler explores themes of suffering and redemption through a heady blend of folklore, popular culture, and the natural world in Nerve Storm. The poet Eileen Myles has said that "the supernatural, the sexy mundane, the out-of-sight are simply [Gerstler's] materials, employed as they might be in a piece of religious art." A crackling wit and whimsical instinct guide this collection as Gerstler traipses through humanity's triumphs and blunders, effortlessly revealing the surreal and surprising possibilities inherent in everyday life.
© Amy Gerstler
Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, art criticism, journalism and plays. She has published thirteen books of poems, a children's book and several collaborative artists books with visual artists. In 2019, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts CD Wright Grant. In 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Scattered at Sea, a book of her poems published by Penguin in 2015 was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her book Bitter Angel won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Poetry, several volumes of Best American Poetry and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry. View titles by Amy Gerstler
Nerve StormAcknowledgments

Petition
Shroud Song
Scarlet Fever
French Leave
Overheard on the Soul Train
Ether
Rest Cure
Mr. Right
My Place in His Heart
That Calm Sunday That Rolls
On and On
Freud's Apology
A Hypochondriac's Account of Herself
My Muse
Dust
Extended Vacation
Around the Block in Eighty Days
Suffering in the Old Testament
The Mermaid's Purse
Lost in the Forest
A Sinking Feeling
On Wanting to Grow Horns
Dead Hunters
Diary of a Lonely Antcatcher
Grass
Losing Heart
Dear Rage Management Supervisor,
Fugue
Duet
Queen for a Day
The Virility Room
Daughter of Eve
The Stretcher-bearers
Doomsday
Nerve Storm
The One for Me
Sad Women's Harvest Song
Duration
Modern Madonnas
Consolation
When empty of light,
An Invalid
Autobiography

About the Author

About

"Your thoughts become fluid, volatile; their aroma fills the room. This is a nerve storm."

In her first collection since Bitter Angel, winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award, Amy Gerstler explores themes of suffering and redemption through a heady blend of folklore, popular culture, and the natural world in Nerve Storm. The poet Eileen Myles has said that "the supernatural, the sexy mundane, the out-of-sight are simply [Gerstler's] materials, employed as they might be in a piece of religious art." A crackling wit and whimsical instinct guide this collection as Gerstler traipses through humanity's triumphs and blunders, effortlessly revealing the surreal and surprising possibilities inherent in everyday life.

Author

© Amy Gerstler
Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, art criticism, journalism and plays. She has published thirteen books of poems, a children's book and several collaborative artists books with visual artists. In 2019, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts CD Wright Grant. In 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Scattered at Sea, a book of her poems published by Penguin in 2015 was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her book Bitter Angel won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Poetry, several volumes of Best American Poetry and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry. View titles by Amy Gerstler

Table of Contents

Nerve StormAcknowledgments

Petition
Shroud Song
Scarlet Fever
French Leave
Overheard on the Soul Train
Ether
Rest Cure
Mr. Right
My Place in His Heart
That Calm Sunday That Rolls
On and On
Freud's Apology
A Hypochondriac's Account of Herself
My Muse
Dust
Extended Vacation
Around the Block in Eighty Days
Suffering in the Old Testament
The Mermaid's Purse
Lost in the Forest
A Sinking Feeling
On Wanting to Grow Horns
Dead Hunters
Diary of a Lonely Antcatcher
Grass
Losing Heart
Dear Rage Management Supervisor,
Fugue
Duet
Queen for a Day
The Virility Room
Daughter of Eve
The Stretcher-bearers
Doomsday
Nerve Storm
The One for Me
Sad Women's Harvest Song
Duration
Modern Madonnas
Consolation
When empty of light,
An Invalid
Autobiography

About the Author