13 POETS FROM LONG ISLAND

A wide-ranging grab-bag of verses from multiple poets runs the gamut from tragic to triumphant and from silly to serious.

Kandel, the Nassau County, New York Poet Laureate from 2019-2021, presents a collection of poetry written by 13 students from her writing class as part of Great Neck’s adult education program. She has held three sessions of the class per year since 2009, with some participants attending since the very beginning. Contributors range from John Valenti, a Pulitzer Prize–nominated and national award–winning journalist, to a former NFL player, Hank Bjorlklund of the New York Jets, to a 99-year-old great-grandfather, George Strausman. This diverse pool of authors makes for a wild ride through a poetic landscape of trauma, tradition, and whimsy. Valenti’s “It’s Us, Not Them” features rhymes that would feel at home in a Lin-Manuel Miranda production: “In the blink of an eye it’d become / the slaughter of innocents, the slaughter of innocence / One more statesman having guaranteed peace; / one more bad man beating on a drum”; Strausman’s “Plurals” features amusing observations about marriage and grammar: “Though more than one mouse is mice, / the plural of spouse is not spice / —although the thought is quite nice”; Judith Zilberstein’s “Bitter Herbs” thoughtfully honors the past: “At one seder my grandfather passed / a sprig of symbolic bitter herbs / to each of us to bless and eat / Ilona refused, / said she had enough bitterness in her life / I didn’t know what she meant.” Whether contemplating history, war, marriage, or the handiness of a narwhal tusk in fighting off one’s enemies, the poems largely reflect both the times in which we live and the sensibilities of the individual poets. The poems are divided up by author, and readers get a good snapshot of each unique personality before moving on to the next.

This diverse collection celebrates the power of poetry, blending emotional unburdening with joyful wordplay.