While the poems in this collection are inspired by the story of Fievel Mousekewitz, the cartoon mouse of the author's childhood, they are gut-wrenching in their examination of the American dream. Fievel's family history-and the author's-is one of a Jewish family immigrating from the Old World to the New and eventually being pulled across the plains: "When migrant boys looked west in leather hats, their slang pierced with Polish accents." Even though "tomorrow is made of rocks and time; is the draft that sweeps sleepily ...
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While the poems in this collection are inspired by the story of Fievel Mousekewitz, the cartoon mouse of the author's childhood, they are gut-wrenching in their examination of the American dream. Fievel's family history-and the author's-is one of a Jewish family immigrating from the Old World to the New and eventually being pulled across the plains: "When migrant boys looked west in leather hats, their slang pierced with Polish accents." Even though "tomorrow is made of rocks and time; is the draft that sweeps sleepily through the fallen branches," it is also where immigrants "watch their dreams decompose on plywood" as they search "for whatever it is that makes men free." Using the story of Fievel, Burt plays masterfully with the ambivalence of hope and cynicism, as if he had traversed the ocean and the continent westwards himself: "I am the hope that has not been forgotten, because I declare myself welcome here, as if there is nothing in history I will not make mine."
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Add this copy of Poems for a Cartoon Mouse to cart. $24.04, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2023 by Ben Yehuda Press.
Add this copy of Poems for a Cartoon Mouse (the Jewish Poetry Project) to cart. $40.63, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2023 by Ben Yehuda Press.
Add this copy of Poems for a Cartoon Mouse (the Jewish Poetry Project) to cart. $70.44, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2023 by Ben Yehuda Press.
