The View from My 80s

The View of the author is of aging. In such poems as Age Appropriate, Body Losses, Unreliable Memory and How Long is a Lifetime? Ruth Steinberg depicts the bewildering, difficult, beneficial, often funny aspects of aging. Other sections deal with her adult reflections of her growing up as a refugee from Hitler's Vienna; of her marriage and her children; of the joys and the difficulties of writing.In clear, poetic language packed full of memorable images, she transforms the familiar into an expressive language of her own. With an honesty that adds intensity to the poems, she uses her poetic power to explore the implications and consequences of her life. The naturalness of her diction makes the work accessible and extremely powerful.