The Instant of Knowing: Lectures, Criticism, and Occasional Prose

Poets on Poetry

by Josephine Jacobsen, Elizabeth Spires (Editor)

Josephine Jacobsen, born in 1908, had her first poem published when she was just ten years old. Though Jacobsen has been writing and publishing for almost eighty years, she remained outside the literary world until she was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1971. She has since been honored numerous times, receiving such prestigious awards as the annual Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The Instant of Knowing: Lectures, Criticism and Occasional Prose joins recent collections of Jacobsen's poetry and short stories, bringing together for the first time the highlights of this distinguished poet's long and varied career as a literary critic, lecturer, and reviewer. Of special interest are two lectures delivered at the Library of Congress while she was Consultant in Poetry there, and a rich assortment of never before collected op-ed and travel pieces from the Baltimore Sun. The volume also includes critical pieces on Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, Robert Lowell, A.R. Ammons, Samuel Beckett, and J.D. Salinger; an unpublished lecture, "The Admiring Bog," on the perils of poetic celebrity; and an extended interview with John Wheatcroft. The book is edited and introduced by the poet Elizabeth Spires, and concludes with three recent, uncollected poems of Jacobsen's.

Josephine Jacobsen is author of In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems (1995), a nominee for the National Book Award, and What Goes without Saying: Collected Stories (1996). She continues to live and write in Baltimore. Elizabeth Spires is a writer-in-residence, Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland, and the author of four collections of poetry.

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Josephine Jacobsen was an American poet, short story writer, and critic.

Born in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, she moved with her family to New York at a young age. When she was fourteen, she moved to Maryland where she lived for the rest of her life. Jacobsen served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress from 1971 to 1973 and as honorary consultant in American letters from 1973 to 1979. She served as member of both the literature panel for the National Endowment of the Arts and of the poetry committee of Folger Library.

Reviews

[Rhonda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Especially interesting are brief articles from the 1970's published in The Baltimore Sun. Her love of travel comes across brightly and endearingly.

[Mills College Library]

818.54 J176i 1997