Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:35:01 -0700 From: abbyb Subject: People Who Do Not Exist For Immediate Release -- Just off the Press: _People Who Do Not Exist, Poems by Abby Bogomolny (Poetry) 64 pages, available November 25th (now). ISBN #0-934172-45-5 I will be booksigning/reading Dec. 7, 3:30 at A Different Light, 489 Castro St. in San Francisco and Dec 11, 7:30 PM at Louden Nelson Center, Center Street in Santa Cruz. Am available for radio interviews in the Bay Area/CA Central Coast Area or by phone from now until June 1997. _People Who Do Not Exist_ can be ordered from this email address, BBPublications PO Box 7361, SCruz CA 95062 or from Women in the Moon, (408) 279-6626, 1409 The Alameda, San Jose, or from Bookpeople and Alamo Square. The Reviews Say: "She speaks to the existence of people who have been marginalized and forgotton. You must meet them. They tell their stories through images, feelings and candid responses to their environment. Let them inside your head." Ekua Omosupe author, _Legacy "As a Jew and a lesbian-in other words, a person who does not exist-I found much to relate to in Abby Bogomolny's newest collection. In particular, reading her poems about her Brooklyn Jewish childhood was like coming home to a place I have been away from for a long, long time. Bogomolny preserves the vital language and lifestyle, the Yiddishkeit, of her parents and grandparents, with wit and heart." Lesléa Newman, 1997 NEA Poetry Fellowship recipient author, _Still Life with Buddy "People Who Do Not Exist is brave, honest and compassionate. Enter this world-neighbors who sit and talk on stoops; poems of loyalty and history, courtyards and community. More voices like these could spark the debate and discourse we need to be having in this country." Maria L. Masqué, former Director, Institute of Hispanic/Latino Cultures, University of Florida "People Who Do Not Exist is an exquisite collection of well-formed, well-crafted, thoughtful, imageic and touching poetry. Many of her poems speak with gentle pathos hemmed by loving humor. Abby's insight, and attunement to the nuance of human psychology, memory, idiosyncrasy is newborn in her artistry. She has arrived with precision to bring urban Jewish voices to the ear with the same precision as the artist draws the face of a character. It is one of the salient strengths of the collection. I loved "I'll give you prayer in the schools," "Like a red tail," "Mother winter's sorrow," "Ghost of the shopping center," "Dad," "Clawing at the air in spasms of delayed conscience," "Look them in the eye," "If she's talking about me, she's busy," "The one who pushed," "A piece of rock," If you see some thing go by," "Can you believe he gave me," "Mom with the news--January, 1996," and "Weinstein's Chapel," and I invite you to read them should your time be short because they are expressly good.There is not a poem in the book that fails to serve People Who Do Not Exist. The second half of the book is best because one can see deeply into the life the poet knew as a kid growing up in Brooklyn. One can see the archetypes and hear the voices that carry over from her prior collection, Black of Moonlit Sea. Obvious, but not obsequious is the intimation that Abby has met the challenge as a poet and woman. In poems such as "No amount" one find the poet with her mother at her father's hospital bedside where "[they] feel like [they're] renting a room..." and where the staff "tried to push him out." We understand profoundly "when you get a sickness like this...that's what hurts." Altogether, the accent in "You want we should make the earth a chicken? or "Mom with the news-January 1996," and "Dad" speak about Abby Bogomolny's courage and willingness to get at the "wound in [your] middle bleeding." (from "the blue green jewel her body"). These poems are powerful and electric with emotion, but they are not excessive, not maudlin. Abby has found the grace and balance to hone emotionally searing poems. I found People Who Do Not Exist duly committed to changing (the way that poet's can) things as they are. Her work is not hard as a rock; it is not caustic, nor is it fevered. It is passionate, full of a compressed anger, the condition that allows any leader to speak out. She has been born anew with this collection. She has been coerced by our times into postures and pronunciations against the rape of the planet, against systematic apathy to the lives of people who live on the fringe or without power, or for the meaningful recall of the private histories that make the cultural larger story. This is a great volume. In her Preface Abby says, "I am heir to the humor that negotiates tragedy, the insight that enables survival through expulsion, exile, inquisitions, death camps." This self-description rings true for this volume. It revisits history and cuts into contemporary litho blocks lives that we wouldn't know existed: the Yenta, Fran, the husband who uses a toothbrush to open his toes, the woman who throws the food from her window. Many time the humor in a Bogomolny lyric is deceptively wry, the sign of a mature poet, who has made the first peace with herself and her herstory. People Who Do Not Exist deserves to speak for many people. And Abby Bogomolny has been appointed to do so." SDiane Bogus author, _Dykehands and _Chant of the Women of Magdelena.