Words for Elephant Man

By Kenneth Sherman

Book Overview

Kenneth Sherman's collection Words for Elephant Man delves into the fascinating life of Joseph Merrick, the titular Elephant Man' who came to prominence as a sideshow curiosity in England in the late nineteenth century. Sherman's spare, captivating verse gives a voice to Merrick's fraught and complex existence, and couples it with a genuine compassion quite distant from the chill of a gawking public.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889843503
• ISBN13: 9780889843509
• Release Date: March 2012
• Publisher: Porcupine's Quill
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Hauntingly beautiful!

Although these words are overused, they really apply to this collection of poems. This is a journey through the short, painful life of Joseph Carey Merrick, told in the first-person with dark wit, longing and keen observations of the 19th-century conditions around him. Unsentimental yet deeply moving, "Words For Elephant Man" take us into Merrick's world of fairgrounds, the grim workhouse he was desperate to escape from, the society ladies who awakened his awareness as a man, and Frederick Treves, the doctor who secured for him a permanent home at the London Hospital. Unlike the movie and the play, these poems are historically accurate, being based on the superbly- researched biography, "The True History of the Elephant Man (Howell & Ford, 1980.) A real tour de force for anyone who admires Joseph Merrick, as well as for readers new to his story, "Words For Elephant Man" should be on every library shelf. Highly recommended for all!