Era’s End by Elaine Zimmerman
$17.99
Elaine Zimmerman’s powerful collection, Era’s End, spans the pandemic through poems of witness and participation. There is immensity and heart-breaking detail in her work –– worlds of animals and trees, humans and cargo planes. Her work refuses to separate politics from emotion and engaged action –– heart and policy, the news and inner life all belong together. Her poems advocate alongside those who are often not seen or listened to: “do not ignore our small and vast despair”. I am so moved by her writing close to “the audacity of bone”, her attention to the risk and precariousness of our lives. “There is something unseen on fire” and together, we meet this urgency in her poetry.
–Meredith Stricker, author of REWILD, Dorset Prize, Tupelo Press
Elaine Zimmerman has truly unique ways of seeing and saying—in just a word or a phrase, she paints unforgettable images, most notable for their powerful juxtapositions, like cradling a sleeping infant during the January 6th insurrection. Her poems portray life at its most primal—the sadly all-too-familiar killings, pandemic, mudslides, droughts—yet the gift she gives us is to juxtapose these everyday horrors with the sheen of hope, dreams and laughter. This book is breath-taking and masterful!
–Ellen Galinsky, Author, Mind in the Making & The Breakthrough Years President, Families and Work Institute
Description
Era’s End
by Elaine Zimmerman
Paper
List: $17.99
979-8-88838-460-2
2024
Elaine Zimmerman is a family policy leader and poet. Keenly focused on civics, model policy and civil rights, she weaves the three together in her leadership for children. Her poetry appears in anthologies, journals, and newspapers. Publications also include two chapbooks, Rasp, with Orchard Street Press and Era’s End, with Finishing Line Press. Recent honors include the U.S. Secretary’s Meritorious Service Award and the Nutmeg Poetry and William Stafford awards.
Ginny Lowe Connors –
This slim volume does indeed capture so much of our current era, and the endings that have found us or are fast approaching. In poems that are lyrical and powerful, Zimmerman captures the essence of things. There is despair here, but the book also offers color, dreams, and hope.
Christie Appelhanz (verified owner) –
I have a confession: I don’t read poetry unless it is written by Elaine Zimmerman. Her words touch my soul in a way nothing else can.
Every line creates such vivid images in my mind: “The daughter is winging wildly against the white orchids.” I can smell the orchids, feel the breeze that’s not mentioned and hear the silence.
There’s mastery in every turn of phrase. I’ve never heard someone say, “My eyes sunk into your eyes,” but when I read it, I know the exact feeling of when that happens.
Era’s End is such a unique combination of everything from a COVID memoir to an advice book. It will break your heart and leave you hopeful at the same time. You can’t read it and not be willing to “open the shutters, just for awhile.”