All tagged poetry

And Yet: Poems

And Yet: Poems

Chris Mathers Jackson
Poetry

It is precisely these sorts of modern mothering moments, among other aspects of 21st-century womanhood, that inspire the poetry of Kate Baer. And Yet: Poems (2022) is her second full-length book of poetry, and it goes on sale on November 8. As with her first collection, What Kind of Woman (2020), which became and instant number one New York Times bestseller, And Yet scrutinizes what it is to be a white, American, middle class woman at this moment. Middle age, parenting, marriage, self-image, sex, health: all of these have their moments under the bright lights that are Baer’s poems.

How To Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) Review

How To Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) Review

Chris Mathers Jackson
Poetry

Barbara Kingsolver’s How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) (2020) is her first collection of poetry. Kingsolver is, of course, beloved for her fiction, respected for her nonfiction, and now we might add, applauded for her verse. It is a collection I encourage any lover of poetry, particularly poetry by women, to reach for; it is a collection that will sit beside Mary Oliver’s Devotions on my shelf, its pages gradually more and more worn.

A Ghost in the Throat

A Ghost in the Throat

Chris Mathers Jackson
Nonfiction

Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s part memoir, part translation A Ghost In the Throat (2020) is, as she states from the beginning, “a female text” (3). In fact, lest her reader fail to absorb this, she titles her first chapter “a female text,” her first line of the first chapter (after the epigraph of a few stanzas of Eiblín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s “Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire” or “Keen for Art ó Laoghaire”) is all in caps (“THIS IS A FEMALE TEXT.”), and then her memoir concludes: “This is a female text” (282). It is clear, she means us all to associate her text, and Eiblín’s as well, with the female. As such, it is both organic and circular, dynamic and complex.

Be Holding

Be Holding

Chris Mathers Jackson
Poetry, My List of Required Reads

Rarely does a book-length poem hold its reader as tenderly and intimately as Ross Gay’s Be Holding (2020) held me. I never would have thought I would encourage everyone I know to read an ode of sorts to basketball legend, Julius Erving (famously called Dr. J.), and yet here I sit, enthusiastically doing just that.