Language You Refuse to Learn

Poetry. "LANGUAGE YOU REFUSE TO LEARN is a masterly articulation of what is spoken in the book's title: the poems in this collection, despite individual strength, readily conspire to give an exhaustive description of the typical experience of immigrants from Central Europe to the United States in the early 20th century. Specifically the author's poems detail her ancestor's arrival from the confused political geography of Poland. Beginning with 'Late Afternoon, February 16, 1905,' and proceeding through 'Surname,' and definitely, 'A Walking Tour of Central Europe on American Soil,' the collection traces a predecessor's settlement into rural American life and includes the inevitable complexities of physical and emotional ailments and death. These are personal in that particular people are described, but they ar described in such a generous way as to include nearly all of us."—Martin Mitchell