Another Day With No Armadillos (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798252612942)

The shattered King Lear asks, "Who is it who can tell me who I am?" American poet Morton D. Rich takes up the challenge of self-definition in 76 poems that span nine decades of life as well as the memories of his ancestors who fled pogroms in Ukraine to find their way in the United States. Weaving family memories with his personal saga, including military service as a corporal, with reflections on his life as a writer and academic, the poems are not a memoir, but a woven garland of points along the way of his personal American narrative. The art within the poems is subtle, as when he dreams of Istanbul, a city he has never visited but which evokes his parents' flight from place to place; and also traces cousin-connections to Allen Ginsberg as a refraction of the Jewish-American family life that once sustained and connected immigrants. The more everyday poems reveal a tenderness of soul, such as his regrets over some wilted scallions, and some dark humor, in his macabre recipe for shepherd's pie. In the seemingly loose organization of the book, the reader is treated to an unthreatening armchair epic. It has more resignation than anger, and much whimsy. What other kind of poet would hurl a gauntlet against literary theorists, using as bookends the presence of an actual aardvark with the utter absence of an armadillo?

Morton D. Rich, Professor Emeritus, Montclair State University, grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and returns to his roots through poetry. His publications include The Dynamics of Tonal Shift in the Sonnet, wherein he explores the impact of syntax on readers' apprehension of meaning, and a chapbook, A Boy in Newark. His poems, drawings, and photographs have appeared in several journals and anthologies, including The Stillwater Review, This Broken Shore, Sensations Magazine, Meta-Land, On the Verge, Voices from Here, Grasmere, and Blue Sky White Clouds. His column, "On Writing," was published in Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines for twenty years.

Author: Morton D. Rich
ISBN-13: 9798252612942
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 03/26/2026
Pages: 94
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.23d