|
2008 Polish American Historical Association Creative Arts Award
Inspired by her Polish American heritage and her first visit
to her family’s homeland in 1996, Linda Nemec Foster’s stunning
new collection poignantly reflects on the immigrant experience
— an experience of loss and discovery, of ambivalence and
pride, of deep tragedy and redemption. Foster’s own ethnicity
as the daughter of second-generation immigrants from Poland
is colored by America’s somewhat disinterested view of the
“other” Europe — only recently emerged from history’s dark
shadow — and of a country that for a hundred years did not
exist as a political entity. In the book’s opening poem, “The
Awkward Young Girl Approaching You,” she struggles with this
sense of ethnic identity: “Who will speak for the dispossessed,
/ those who come from nowhere, / whose birthplace cannot be
found / on any map . . . ?” Foster’s attempts to reclaim an
ethnic heritage, to search for herself in the mirror of her
family’s history, resonate throughout her verse.
Amber Necklace from Gdansk moves from lyric childhood memories and descriptions of immigrant life to prose poems that interweave the mythic and historic past with the present. Imaginative, powerful, surprising, and magical, Foster’s lines breathe life into the land, history, and culture of her ancestors. Who will speak for the dispossessed? These poems will.
Linda Nemec Foster is the author of four previous poetry collections, most recently Living in the Fire Nest. She conducts writing workshops for the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs in Grand Rapids.
|
