Michael Blumenthal (1)

Suppose you had just broken up with someone and wanted to wallow in the pain and sorrow, and the hopelessness of everlasting love. This is the poetry for you! Imagine Billy Joel's song "The Stranger" in around seventy-five different versions. For example, take the beginning of the poem "The Foreshadowings": "Already they saw the end in what began: Deep were their stares of love, and deep their hate. So much unsaid, and known, between a woman and a man." It concludes: "Rapturous in the dark, show more ascribing lovely names to future hate, They opened first the door, and then the gates. In rushed their joy, then the end of what had just begun: They limp along now, man and wife, unsinging what they sung." This is actually one of the happier poems. Blumenthal apparently penned this collection after his own divorce. Here's hoping he found some joy in later life. (JAF) show less