Praise for The Pattern Maker’s Daughter:
Sandee Gertz’s The Pattern Maker’s Daughter is a remarkable debut collection full of honesty, wisdom, and heart. Like a fine photographer, she has empathy for her subjects, an eye for the telling detail, and a commitment to the truth. She brings this community to life from an insider perspective; these are her people, though the love she brings to these poems never slides into sentimentality or idealizing, and they never lose the necessary grit. In these finely wrought poems, danger and trauma exist in the landscape, in the homes, and in the very bodies of her characters. These are simply the stories we tell each other to stay alive. Jim Daniels, Poet Author of Places/everyone, Rowing Inland, Birth Marks, Street Caligraphy, and other titles.
In well-made poems full of luscious sounds and pulsing details, Sandee Gertz discovers her inheritance of pattern-making in the steel mills and working-class neighborhoods of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Where her father made patterns, “preparing wooden replicas/of what steel would cast and harden,” she now forges poems, formal or free, tight lyrics or expansive narratives, that explore both her personal history and the historical record of this working-class city. – Neil Shepard, Poet, Author of Hominid Up, This Far From the Source, Scavenging the country for a heartbeat, and other titles.
Honored to be Awarded two consecutive 6-month terms as the Writer in Residence at the the Russell Churchwell Writer’s Room at the Nashville Downtown Library. It was a beautiful room in which to write and dream, and I got a lot of work in on the novel and other projects. I may return here (if they’ll have me 😉 ) in future years.
Book Reviews for The Pattern Maker’s Daughter and Other Links:
Review of The Pattern Maker’s Daughter by Scrapper Poet, Karen Weyant: https://thescrapperpoet.wordpress.com/tag/sandee-gertz-umbach/
Review of Pattern Maker’s Daughter by Michael Dennis, Poet and Blogger: http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-pattern-makers-daughter-sandee.html
Review in Poet’s Quarterly by Brian Fanelli for The Pattern Maker’s Daughter: http://www.poetsquarterly.com/p/reviews-july-2012.html
Review of the Pattern Maker’s Daughter by Tweetspeak https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2017/01/24/poetic-voices-sandee-gertz-umbach-lori-lamothe/
Review of Pattern Maker’s Daughter within Jeanetta Calhoun Mish’s book Oklahomeland: Essays, Lamar University Press, 2015 https://www.lamar.edu/literary-press/_files/documents/Oklahomeland_Review.pdf
Awards, Press Mentions and Links
World Literature Today: Honored to be featured as one of 16 Working Class Poets, alongside many other fine poets. Check it out here: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2013/november/bra-factory-sandee-gertz-umbach
Tillie Olson Award, Second Place for The Pattern Maker’s Daughter: Working Class Studies Association award. Thanks to the WCSA for recognizing work that (from the press release) “represents the best new work in the field of working-class studies…demonstrating the scope and vitality of cultural and scholarly production in the field, and which serve as an inspiration to future work…” https://www.wilkes.edu/academics/graduate-programs/masters-programs/creative-writing-ma-mfa/about-our-students/revise-this/archives/2013/revise-this-june-2013.aspx
Interview with Australia’s History Lab Broadcast: Invisible Hands of the Pattern Maker: Here I was interviewed about the work of my father — pattern making in a steel mill — and how it intersected with my poetry and book, The Pattern Maker’s Daughter.
First Place Award in the Sandburg-Livesay Poetry Anthology Competition: For winning poem: “I Can’t Help But Think About Eve.” Appeared in the 1990 Anthology of the Sandburg-Livesay Anthololgy by Mekler Deahl, Hamilton, Canada, titled “No Choice But to Trust” — a line from the poem. https://archive.triblive.com/news/poets-offer-prized-choice-works/
Blog: Named in Best Poetry Collections of 2012 by Scrapper Poet blogger, Karen Weyant: https://www.karenjweyant.com/best-collections.html
“The Bra Factory” poem shared by Working Class Poems site — a great site for diverse working class poetry here: https://amerlit.wixsite.com/working-class-poems/umbach
Book Launch article in The Tribune Democrat for The Pattern Maker’s Daughter: http://www.tribdem.com/community/discovery-center-to-host-poetry-book-launch/article_8dd3ea84-6f2f-5738-881d-6f58847d5b32.html
Past article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for Poetry Outreach work in a non-profit art center I founded in Washington, PA. https://www.post-gazette.com/local/washington/2005/01/02/David-Templeton-s-Seldom-Seen-The-rhythm-of-recovery/stories/200501020212
Fellow poets in World Literature Today — love these PA poet friends! Check out poets Karen Weyant and Brian Fanelli. https://davidjbauman.com/2013/10/30/pennsylvania-working-class-poets-in-world-literature-today/
Article about the power of joining Poetry to Broadcasting — from my days in PA where I was able to bring an everyday poetry perspective to local radio station WJPA:https://books.google.com/books?id=jOVQBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=sandee+gertz+umbach&source=bl&ots=A3ysGNpgav&sig=ACfU3U2bX1Lj3elEE8Jw5wZOXUpuk4Sz-A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbrYbq2I_uAhUIyFkKHTuNAzA4MhDoATACegQIAhAC#v=onepage&q=sandee%20gertz%20umbach&f=false
Karen Weyant, Scapper Poet talking about female voices in working class poetry including The Pattern Maker’s Daughter: https://spkofmarvels.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/karen-j-weyant/
Happy to be included in the BARED anthology of women’s writing about Bras and Breasts with my poem “The Bra Factory.” http://lauramadelinewiseman.com/portfolio-view/bared/