The Fool

by Jennifer Jean

“The Fool takes us to this basic that when we feel most unloved and unlovable, we enter the space of endings and beginnings, the space where we must decide whether or not to believe. This collection of poetry is thus an article of faith, poems that dare us–in unflinching terms–to believe. Jean's poetic emerges in twists of language that hurtle into dangerous places, steep falls and banked curves that bring us back to consider life's vital air and light.” ~ Afaa Michael Weaver, The Government of Nature “Jennifer Jean’s The Fool asks us, ‘Aren’t we supposed to see after time spent in the dark?’ And blessedly, the answer is so much life goes on to breathe and dwell in this exceptional debut muggy men, hornets, vespers, ‘…the eyes of these poems black like beetles.’ The Fool gives us a world where ‘…we need every red-engine knell to slumber…and then we could wake stoked to survive.’ This is a poetry that does more than survive in our collective it flashes, it burns.” ~ Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Lucky Fish “When you open Jennifer Jean’s new book The Fool, be ready to travel with her. The title comes from an archetypal figure in the Tarot cards, one typically imagined as a wanderer, someone open to life, needing freedom but perhaps buffeted by it too, a figure not beyond fear, but not afraid of the dark either. These are also the virtues you’ll find in Jennifer Jean's poems. They travel back to a hardscrabble childhood, and forward through a young woman’s coming of age. She also takes us inward via dreams and shape-shifting visions, charting thereby some of the wilder and more difficult areas of the psyche. At each turn of the journey, we accompany a person in the process of acquiring hard-earned and utterly worthwhile spiritual wisdom. In effect, what we witness in these vivid poems is the growth of a soul.” ~ Fred Marchant, Full Moon Boat and The Looking House

Genres: Poetry

82 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2013

About the author

I am the author of the poetry chapbook In the War (Big Table Publishing Co., 2010) My poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including: North Dakota Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, Endicott Review, Awakenings Review, Santa Clara Review, Southern California Review, Caketrain, Relief Quarterly, The MOM Egg, The Wilderness House Review, and Megaera. I'm a regular contributer to Art Throb (http://www.nsartthrob.com), an online arts and lifestyle magazine--and have recently begun a monthly feature column for Art Throb, called "POETRY: Fascinations & Occasional Reviews." I co-direct Thursday’s Theatre of Words & Music artist’s reading and performance series in Salem, MA. As well, I teach literature and writing at Salem State College, Montserrat College of Art, The Peabody Institute Library, and as a freelance poetry workshop facilitator.

Reviews

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vivid, original collection. Jean has an amazing control over the English language and bends and manipulates words, sending her Fool self to the edge of the cliff over and over, but saving her each time. A powerful voice in poetry.

[hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

some good poems on family and some nice surprises of language