Poetry by Morton Marcus

December 1, 1988 • 6 x 9 • 144 pages • 978-0-918273-47-5

Fifty-six narrative poems tell the story of the author’s family’s migration from Czarist Russia to the United States.

Morton Marcus’s Pages from a Scrapbook of Immigrants tells the story of his family’s life in Czarist Russia and in America. The tale unfolds in a series of fifty-six accessible and engaging narrative poems. Each poem is a separate work, but when joined with the others, they forms a continuous narrative of one family’s struggle to survive, both physically and spiritually, in two alien cultures. Filled with humor and pathos, the poems deal with all areas of the human condition in attempting, as Yeats said, “to come/into the desolation of reality” that is peculiarly American.

Reviews

“With superb control over language and strategy, Marcus [shows us] the newfound land shining in the eyes of the immigrants and, beyond that surface, to the lost lives left behind, by those from whom we come. Another brilliant book by Marcus.” —Robert Solomon, Small Press Review

“What we all long for and find, in this intensely human collection of poems, is the bond that binds us to our own history. . . . Mr. Marcus is a skillful poet whose lines flow with energy and elegance from one startling image to another. He is also a fine storyteller. These masterful narrative poems, like good theatre, are rich in drama, moving us from laughter to tears.” —Bitter Root: An International Poetry Magazine