"Finely crafted and marvelously inventive, these poems sing and hiss and howl. They enliven and push and love."—Naomi Ayala, author of Wild Animals on the Moon
"In this lucid collection, Kim Jensen moves between intimate address and an engagement with the world, connecting perception with perception in ways that are subtle and distinct. Jensen’s deftness in creating her own ‘poetic logic’ offers many pleasing jolts of surprise in a conceptual project that is original and compelling."—Elizabeth Robinson, author of The Orphan and Its Relations
"Like the medieval women writers who included passages from other women authors in their own works, Jensen’s homage results in poetry as a form of hospitality, a way of being truly open to the world. ‘Ordinary speech seems like a sin to me,’ writes Jensen, so she gifts us with this miraculous celebration of all that is spiritual and worldly."—Tina Darragh, author of A(Gain)2St the Odds
Description
The poems in Jensen’s powerful new collection have the speed and instability of linguistic particles traveling outward from a primal collision: light with darkness, oppression with liberty, doubt with certainty, and faith with its impossible Other. Occupying a tense, fugitive space, the poems derive from the ideas and vocabulary of radical poet and novelist Fanny Howe into startling new formulations. Compact and evocative, Jensen’s lyrics are marked by the intensity of their moral commitment to matters of the world and matters of the heart. This is an important work, offering glimpses of what might be possible—if only the love, faith, and compassion that sustain us could themselves be sustained.
About the Author
Kimberly Jensen is the author of the novel The Woman I Left Behind and a collection of poems, Bread Alone. She is associate professor of English at the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland.
5 x 7, 96 pages
May 2013