Victory Boulevard
This collection could be called The Lives of Girls and Women if Alice Munro hadn't already taken the title. In funny, lyrical, poignant poems and prose poems, Herman conjures everyone from lonely teenage girls listening to records in their bedrooms to her own Depression-era seamstress mother to Betty Boop to the oldest daughter of the old woman who lives in a shoe.
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Her mother's word, Michele Herman tells us in one of these strong, moving poems, was 'lovely, ' a fitting adjective to describe the book as a whole. With warmth of heart, generosity of spirit, and keen observation of family and a receding past, the loveliness prevails, as endearing as it is evocative of a hot June night on Victory Boulevard, where time stands still and "last year's dances are a glossy memory."
--Philip Schultz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Failure
The poems in Victory Boulevard don't ache for the missed moments of life or try to excuse the past, but embrace the way shown. There's a clarity to this collection that comes from a keen observation and reflection of the world. From childhood to motherhood, from the bedtime story to the embarrassments which could belong to any of us, these poems are both familiar and full of surprise.
--Dorianne Laux, author of The Book of Men
