If You Like Difficulty

by Jan Clausen

Poetry. IF YOU LIKE DIFFICULTY presents Jan Clausen's controversial playful language and unapologetic assertions as a tour de force as "Shakespearean as it is June Jordean." IF YOU LIKE DIFFICULTY treads its heavy feet across the plains of what some have left blithely contented. In a variety of speech (bridged bite of lyric or agile bounding narrative phrases--all composed of wit and bright shards of anger and loving, Clausen's poems will not surrender to the inept. Jan Clausen is also the author of the memoir Apples and Oranges (Houghton Mifflin).

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Softcover

First published October 30, 2007

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense, brilliant, well-crafted verse that warrants more than one read-through. Hard to describe because Clausen's writing abilities far exceed my ability to succictly summarize her intensions. She is a genius at combining personal and political voices. She embodies the feminist assertion that the personal is political and the political is personal. She speaks for the planet, for schools of fish, for crumbling statues discarded behind an art museum. These are difficult poems, well suited to difficult times.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

These witty, resourceful poems turn on a dime from ABAB formal to text message-y digital, hugging the curves of language with precision and wild glee. "Aqui/la luz/resumes."