Authors - J

Bonnie Jacobson brings us In Joanna's House (Cleveland State, 1998), a compelling collection of forty-six wildly inventive poems about the fictional Joanna, whose agile mind ponders everything in her own unique way. (added 8/05) 

Michael Jennings is the author of Silky Thefts (Orchises Press, 2007), one of the loveliest books to appear in 2007. Superbly crafted, especially the sequence of sonnets for his mother, these lyrical poems travel through both time and space, mining the memories of childhood and youth, of Paris and New Orleans, the exotic scents of an earlier Iran. Metaphor and imagery are outstanding and the diction, its surreally-swirled language, delight the ear. The genuine and intense emotion that permeates each poem gives the reader the experience of recollected love and loss: altogether stunning! There is also an earlier collection, Totems (Basfal,1994), a visually exciting book of wildlife photographs by Scott Ian Barry with poems by Jennings to illustrate each animal. Timber wolves to crocodiles and the great horned owl, they are all here in thirty-five fine poems and photos. (updated 12/07).

Out Of The Ordinary (Impatiens Press, 1994) is Robert K. Johnson's fourth book of poetry. The poems are in Johnson's style of incisive directness and focus on daily life, family, marriage and his careers as both teacher and writer. There are also a number of excellent dramatic monologues.

The Blessing: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon, 2000)is a collection of six books by poet Richard Jones. To quote from Booklist's review: "Lightness of touch and understated elegance." With deceptive ease and scrupulous economy of means, Jones portrays the human face of loneliness, desire, loss and the redemptive power of awareness and acceptance. What may seem melancholy becomes, in these deftly handled lines and acute images, consoling and quietly inspiring." (added 8/05)

Allison Joseph is the gifted African-American poet and editor of Crab Orchard Review. Her four books: Soul Train (Carnegie Mellon, 1997), In Every Seam (Pitt, 1997), Imitation of Life (Carnegie Mellon, 2003), and her newest, the prize-winning Worldly Pleasures (Word, 2004) are wry and bittersweet yet overall jubilant poems of memory about growing-up as a black girl in an urban neighborhood. These are wise, powerful, human.