The Plague of the Tender-Hearted

In The Plague of the Tender-Hearted Cindy Frenkel makes her way through the maze of family death divorce even a brother's suicide without ever losing the ability to embrace joys small and large. Despite heart-rending troubles there is still beauty in the natural world the discovery of an unlikely new love and moments with a beloved daughter when night stars spill out / enough to occupy the universe.-Mary Jo Firth GillettWith her three-part alchemy of plain speaking suddenly perfect metaphors and explosive morally anchored last lines Cindy Frenkel portrays a family in The Plague of the Tender-Hearted. From the witty to the elegiac the poems quest for the why beneath a brother's suicide and examine the underside of prosperity. But the marvels of this collection are the sassy buoyant poems of love for a daughter and unexpected love after divorce. Frenkel uses memory the dynamics of ageing parents and the legacy of the Holocaust to pierce us with her bullseye poetic one-liners. The Plague of the Tender-Hearted with its gem-like rhymes is both an exploration and a revelation.-Molly Peacock author of The Analyst and Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems