"Pioneering convinces us that whatever may underlie the vexatious problems of sex and vocation, it is not lack of courage or ability."Samuel C. Florman, New York Times Book Review "Biting poems."Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air "A refreshing debut collection. . . . Susan Eisenberg makes economical, graceful, and good-humored poems from the struggle to win respect as a woman in a hazardous, male-dominated industry. . . . Pioneering illuminates textures of the working life that cut across countless occupations. . . . Eisenberg speaks with transfixing honesty and immediacy, importing into poetry a perspective from which we've heard too little."Thomas R. Smith, Star Tribune "Personal and political, steeped in images of the trade and universally accessible, these poems are sure to appeal both to tradeswomen and to those outside of the industry."Sojourner "Pioneering captures individual stories in an emotional and compelling way."Feminist Collections "This book is great value.. . .It is a compelling ethnographic account of an unseen, unsung class of workers. . . "Kristen Snow Spalding, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April, 2000. "Because these poems are moving and accomplished: full of grit, humor, awareness, invention, information, fellow feeling and political savvy, they avoid polemic or any self-indulgent emotion in a subject both politically and emotionally charged, even as they allow the reader to enter the experience of being a pioneer in a skilled labor field whose climate is almost universally hostile to women."Eleanor Wilner, author of Otherwise "In Pioneering, Susan Eisenberg introduces us to a world and lives too little known through poetry. This is a powerful book filled with honest, unpretentious, fearless, and beautiful poems."Thomas Lux, author of Split Horizon "Susan Eisenberg is the best kind of political poettough, plain-spoken, but alive to the human complexities that can derail the expected moral. She has learned her trade from real mastersLevertov, Snyderand her pacing and alertness are unerring."Alan Williamson, Author of Love and the Soul
