Riding By: Collected Poems

Author: Gerald Harris

ISBN 978-1-62137-960-7 (eBook)

BOOK DESCRIPTION

This New York poet has been compared, in a Kirkus review, to Walt Whitman, Hart
Crane and John Asbury. His poems graphically capture images, examine relationships,
wrestle with mortality, explore foreign places, express love, toy with romance and
protest Man's inhumanity. The killing of Trayvon Martin in the name of "stand your
ground", being lost in Paris, responding to a line-cutter at a Starbucks, describing a
home run as Rilke might have, all of these moments and many more, are dealt with
vividly with melancholy, irony or a touch of humor. The throb and hum of the city beat
persistently beneath these poems as does the clacking of the long-gone Third Avenue
El which once traveled above the streets of the poet's youth. There is beauty here and
grit as the city takes away even as it gives.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gerald Harris is a semi-retired NYC Criminal Court Judge. Raised in the Bronx his legal
career has been divided between public service and the private practice of law. Harris
was an Assistant DA in Manhattan, the County Attorney of Westchester County,
Deputy Commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services and Executive
Director of the Mayor's Commission to Combat Police Corruption. He also served as
Chair of the NYC Board of Correction. He claims as his proudest moment his refusal,
as a young prosecutor, to try an obscenity case against the comedian Lenny Bruce.
Harris' poem, Home Run,was chosen a semi-finalist for the 2016 Earl Weaver Baseball
Writing Prize. He has read his poems at KGB in the East Village, the Bronx Museum
and the Tannery in Santa Cruz, California.