To Be Opened After My Death

This may be one of the more accessible poetry collections focusing on mortality and the transience of existence. In seemingly effortless, irresistibly ear-friendly language, Goldberg tees up her manifesto to resonate through the ages, as she grapples with humanity's helplessness versus the devil inside, the march of time forcing us to move on from even our family members, childhood deprivations we spend lifetimes compensating for, music and poetry speaking across generations, parents realizing they may no longer be around when their children understand them, true love only being fully appreciated "close to death," the ghostly resonance ordinary things acquire over time. This is light verse at its darkest and finest. You will have a blast reading these poems, even as they make you "watch . . . infinities blink by."

-Anton Yakovlev

The first poem in Midge Goldberg's new collection concludes, "I need the frame." Goldberg's artistry provides frames we all need. Her compact poems contain and ponder a variety of objects, situations, and phenomena, from an ice tray to a coffee maker, from GPS to Minnie Mouse. Throughout this rich book, a rewarding principle prevails: Goldberg's deft deployment of forms, and her wry and tender voice, combine to ensure that what her frames enclose they also celebrate. I'm glad I disobeyed the stern injunction of the collection's title, To Be Opened After My Death.

-Rachel Hadas

What a wonderful collection . . . a genuine pleasure from start to finish. Those familiar with Midge Goldberg's poetry will recognize her originality of wit, formal virtuosity, and knack for inhabiting and reinventing objects as commonplace as an ice tray, a hanging plant, or an empty shell, and making them extraordinary. Fairy tales are reimagined as "SmartTales." A sonnet reveals Minnie Mouse's true nature (and name). Workers at a place called "The Inn" disclose details of their experience with lively intimacy. Philip Larkin needn't have worried that poetry could lose its "pleasure-seeking audience . . . the only audience worth having." This wise and entertaining collection succeeds with flying colors in holding onto that audience for good.

-Leslie Monsour, author of The Colosseum Critical Introduction to Rhina P. Espaillat