City Eclogue

City Eclogue by Roberson, Ed. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781891190230.

Poetry. African American Studies. Ed Roberson might no longer live in Pittsburgh, but the city in which he was born and raised still leaves its fragmented structures etched throughout his poetry. A city of hard work and hard times, the now-impoverished neighborhoods that had at one time stood as centers of jazz and art; the hills, the rivers, the skyscraping iron and steel, and the pain. Though most of the poems in this collection do not necessarily take place in Pittsburgh, there is a rhythmic fragmentation here painting portraits of urban life in general. Beauty, music, poverty, blood, and concrete seem to live within the line breaks, while breath-stopping pauses halt you just long enough so that--like at a smoky backroom jazz club--you cant wait to see what he does next.