“Whether we are in the company of artists, writers, musicians, family, friends, the Bronx or the floral life of California, these poems offer us their beauty and guide us through Florence Weinberger’s deliberate meanderings. We, as readers, become part of her poetic tapestry, gasping with wonder and asking for more. Her appetite for art goes hand in hand with her probe into the essence of what life offers us, into expression itself. Sacred Graffiti is a life-affirming miracle that rises above technique into artistic bursts of both emotion and intellect. I simply love this book.”
—Paul Lieber
“Like Philip Levine, Florence Weinberger’s poems evolve masterfully from the ordinary into the extraordinary. Consider marrowbones, lovingly boiled down to their essence so her husband can spread sustenance onto bread and eat, his stomach forever flattened by concentration camp hunger no matter how much he tries to fill himself up. Her persistent introspection scrutinizes everyday events such as going to the supermarket and takes them into another realm of meaning. In Weinberger’s world, what we wake up to is the first step towards insight and illumination.”
—Jeanette Clough
“In Sacred Graffiti, Florence Weinberger has deciphered the vivid mantra that lives behind our painted world. One of LA’s most visible poets, she bears witness to the rendering and re-rendering of a psychic landscape we cannot help but recognize as our own. This collection portrays a poet at the peak of her powers, a guide to help us “take on the heat and grief of love / with our empty hands.””
—Brendan Constantine
Florence Weinberger has published three books of poetry, The Invisible Telling Its Shape (Fithian Press, 1997), Breathing Like a Jew (Chicory Blue Press, 1997) and Carnal Fragrance (Red Hen Press, 2004). Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her poetry has been published in numerous literary magazines, including Another Chicago Magazine, Antietam Review, The Comstock Review, The Pedestal, Solo, Rattle, Spillway, and anthologies such as Family Reunion: Poems About Parenting Grown Children, So Luminous the Wildflowers, Images From the Holocaust, and Lifecycles: Jewish Women on Biblical Themes in Contemporary Life. Among her awards are first prizes in the Poetry/LA Bicentennial, Sculpture Gardens Review, Mississippi Valley, Red Dancefloor and the dA Center for the Arts poetry contests.
