Description

In late1940s Long Branch a historic but rundown Jersey Shore resort town in a neighborhood of Italian Black and Jewish families Robert Pinsky began his unlikely journey to becoming a poet Descended from a bootlegger grandfather an athletic father and a rebellious tomboy mother Pinsky was an unruly but articulate high school C student whose obsession with the rhythms and melodies of speech inspired him to write

Pinsky traces the roots of his poetry with its wide and fearless range back to the voices of his neighborhood to music and a distinctly American tradition of improvisation with influences including Mark Twain and Ray Charles Marianne Moore and Mel Brooks Emily Dickinson and Sid Caesar Dante Alighieri and the Orthodox Jewish liturgy He reflects on how writing poetry helped him make sense of lifes challenges such as his mothers traumatic brain injury and on his notable public presence including an unprecedented three terms as United States poet laureate

Candid engaging and wry Jersey Breaks offers an intimate selfportrait and a unique poetic understanding of American culture