First Letter of My Alphabet
Lance Strate
About the Author
Lance Strate is the author of 10 books, including 2 other books of poetry, Thunder at Darwin Station (2015), and Diatribal Writes of Passage in a World of Wintertextuality (2020). Translations of his writing have appeared in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Hebrew, Mandarin, and Quenya, and several of his poems have been set to music.
He currently holds the title of Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University. He is also President of the Institute of General Semantics, and is a past president and board member of the New York Society for General Semantics, the New York State Communication Association, and the Media Ecology Association, as well as the Senior Vice-President of the Global Listening Centre. Dr. Strate held the 2015 Harron Family Chair in Communication at Villanova University, and received an honorary appointment as Chair Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Henan University in Kaifeng, China, in 2016.
Lance Strate served as President of Congregation Adas Emuno, a Reform synagogue in Bergen County, New Jersey, for 6 years, and is a member of the temple’s Board of Trustees. On occasion, he serves as lay leader for Friday evening Shabbat services, and delivers sermons that are sometimes said to be thought-provoking.
This third collection of poetry by Lance Strate is his most spiritual, and his most intimate. First Letter of My Alphabet is a personal pentateuch, populated by a diverse cast of characters that include Adam and Eve, Moses, Saul, Qohelet, Joan of Arc, Marie Curie, Brigitte Bardot, Max Weinberg, an assortment of superheroes, the Tailors of Eternity, angels and avatars, and the Supreme Being in myriad manifestations. Flashes of humor mix with bittersweet memory, poignant longings for escape are juxtaposed with calls for resistance and transcendence, sound and vision, speech and inscription, language and symbol, history and memory, past and present, the particular and the universal, the intellectual and the ineffable, all come together in a volume that speaks to flesh and blood and mind and soul as one.
ISBN 979-8-9858336-4-5
140 pages
$16.95
5.5" x 8.5" perfect bound, paper
Excerpt
How It Works
the wind gives voice to a thousand tongues
speaking as one
one single word
of mystery
a chorus of green
stretching outwards
singing to the sky
of existence
nothing more than
I am and I am and I am
swaying to the rhythm of creation
standing firm
not through pride or courage
neither stubborn nor defiant
nothing more than a simple integrity
at the base of it all
simply being
I am and I am and I am
and embracing the deep world below
land without light
land of rich decay
grounded in intimate knowledge of death
drawing strength from the darkness
to reach for the light
to be and to be and to be more than I am
expansive
growing
a presence extending
not by anger or appetite
only to be and to be more and more
I am and I am and I am
that is all
I am and I am and I am
Reviews
“Lance Strate has reached poetic Nirvana in his new collection First Letter of My Alphabet. Strate covers big philosophic territory with simplicity and exquisite language. This is truly a collection showcasing the sparkle of words spread wide and deep.”
—Doris White, Professor of Language, Literature, Culture, and Writing, William Paterson University
“This is an inspired, frightening hopeful book. Anchored in Hebraic tradition, some of Strate’s poems call to mind the apocalyptic Dylan of Hard Rain, the Coleman Barks version of Rumi, and The Book of Revelations. But there is levity too–wit, wisdom and the lightning connectivity of ‘wordplay’ to take us laterally into unexpected illuminations. “It is not thought that confirms existence/that's putting Descartes in front of the horse's mouth.” Remembrances of a 60s New York childhood are delightful and endearing while the more dire summoning of a parentage only made possible by survival of the Holocaust gives a profound grounding to Strate’s wonders and questions: “how strange it is to be born from flames that never burned me.” And so much more.”
—Robert Priest, poet, playwright, and songwriter, author of Reading the Bible Backwards and If I Didn’t Love the River
“This personal collection of mnemonics moves me beyond measure. It is a playful masterpiece of persistence and patience. Lance Strate is simply the best poet I know.”
—Michelle Shocked, singer-songwriter
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