"Musician and poet, Jake Marmer offers us a combo—Jazz, Talmud, and Bible—T.S. Monk in Jerusalem, a ‘flood-reign staccato grief riff.’ Gospel is a distant cousin. For example, ‘Rachmonos (mercy) Blues’: ‘I know a little woman, / she got a trunk full of rach- / monos, yeah a trunk full of parsnips and rach- /monos wonder if she’ll park it on my street tonight.’ Or try ‘Bachelor's Haiku’: ‘spring evening at home / folding up the warm laundry / one unmatched sock.’ His voice is unmatched. As far as I know, no one else is playing on his street."—Stanley Moss
About the Author
Jake Marmer is a poet and performer. He is a doctoral student at the Comparative Literature department of the CUNY Graduate Center. In 2008-2009 he was a Dorot Fellow in Jerusalem, where the first poems in this collection were written. Jake was born in a small Ukrainian town and came to the U.S. at the age of 15. He now lives in New York with his wife Shoshana and their son Lev.
December 2011