Jean Janzen – författare

A cold wind, but not a bitter one, blows through the poems in this collection by celebrated poet, Jean Janzen. Here she writes about aging, intimate love, the bearing away of children, light, and as always, memory. A cold wind, but not a bitter one, blows through the poems in Part 1 of Jean Janzen''s newest collection. Her refusal to turn aside from any difficulty, any loss, here presses her writing into firmer edges than ever before. She writes with cool tones; she witnesses now with a longer view, layers of life stacked against each other. But the subjects are her choice ones—aging, intimate love, the bearing away of children, light, and always memory. How does she see so keenly above and below the surface at the same time? Motion and rhythms and round words roll through the poems in Part 2, the more familiar hallmarks of Janzen''s rumbling universe. She brings longing to every page, and then calls us in, gently, yet irresistibly. Among these 43 new poems are "Skin and Air," "The Uprooting," "Lifting You," "Architecture of Falling," and "Holding On to the Walls." Janzen has received The Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the author of three books of poetry published by Good Books: Snake in the Parsonage, Tasting the Dust, and Piano in the Vineyard.

Once again, Jean Janzen writes mighty poems, finding those heart-stopping human moments for which there is no adequate language. Janzen, a National Endowment for the Arts winner, begins this newest collection of poetry with "Wailing in the Shower" and these arresting stanzas: "After the elation of giving birth, our new daughter fed and sleeping, I stand under the warm water and begin on the high notes-- Madame Butterfly''s ecstasy, One fine day in May, the harmony sliding over my body. After the loss of his bride, our friend turns on the guestroom shower and begins his long wailing. It echoes through the house, flows down the stairway, his baritone cries rising and falling. Over and over, the full octaves."           And she goes on to mark the full-throated human experience, placing her 42 poems into these sections: "Broken Places," "The Garden," "Carving the Hollow," and, finally, "Piano in the Vineyard." In every poem Janzen is utterly conscious of the unspeakable wonder and terror of being alive. Jean Janzen is a winner of The Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.