Night Scenes

by Lisa Jarnot

Poetry. In NIGHT SCENES, the fourth book from best-selling poet Lisa Jarnot, we are returned to the "first melody" through mock archaisms, neologisms, rollicking rhymes, and childlike delight. Her circling lyrics sing the pleasure of naming itself, with pastoral dreams occasionally giving way to waking life in Brooklyn. Like William Blake's songs, NIGHT SCENES privileges wonder over reason in a triumph of the imagination: "Be jumpy / or unhinged / with joy / enlightened / fry cakes / Staten hoy."

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2008

Reviews

[Eugene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worn-out woods are invented
We read daylight in brooks.

a true mystic, jarnot writes her poems to some quantum-entangled self light years away. not to us — though we can understand.

her “ditty reel yam” does so dazzle.

the first part (of three) is very jabberwocky, a signifying glossolalia of demented or “touched” or graced neologisms. even there and crystallizing through the rest is a domestic and richly habited circumstance.

O LIBRARY O LAWN O CAROUSEL

O vocages of the dead,
o dead this one
and dead that one,
let me count the ways
that you are dead,
o people I used to know
who are married,
o people I used to know
with their children,
o broken line of
trees and branches
picked at by the squirrels,
o work and sleep
o work and sleep
o lighter fluid,
the cool of grass
in spring,
o forty, o flag, o
fantastic statue
staring back,
o famous historian
with birds upon your head
the sycamores in bud
abound,
the brilliance of the others
who are brillianter than I
o page-turning pigeon,
o felicitous husband,
o tourists, go away,
the somber stares of couples
and the somber glow of ties,
o ties of the living dead,
and the businesses of midtown,
all gone, with felicity,
all gone, with grace,
all gone, in this resistance,
erased encobbled space.

rumor just heard the other day says that the poet is taking a year off the internet. when i heard this all i could think was: GO LISA JARNOT. YOU ARE A HERO. YOU ARE A VERY BRAVE HERO… .

also i think all books designed by jeff clark is my new reading map.

[Evan Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fox rabbit sheep donkey aardvark cow cow cow.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly fun and silly book. Lisa Jarnot has as amazing sense of humor, and it all comes tumbling out in "Night Scenes."

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are poems where she is doing something she's done before and poems where she is doing something new. Of the poems where she's doing something she's done before, some of them I liked for their familiarity, and for the same reason I liked what she was doing before. Some of them I didn't like as much, thinking that it was a weaker version of what she was doing before, a possible parody. These two groupings are not mutually exclusive. Of the poems where she is doing something new, some of them were an extension of what she was doing before and made sense in this way and I immediately liked them. But some of them were so new that I had a hard time figuring out where she's coming from or how it relates to her older work. These I didn't like as much, but at the same time I admired their newness and wondered briefly if I'm not the one to blame.

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy reading this book. It had its moments and is a fun and VERY quick read-- perhaps too quick; but I don't feel there's a whole lot to it that will stay with me. I'm not sure I see this book as a book. It's more a collection of occassional poems. And that's fine, but I'm not getting the resonance from this book I've gotten from RING OF FIRE and BLACK DOG SONGS. I have a hard time believing I'll be thinking about this book tomorrow. I'm a little disappointed, really. But it was worth the read for its fun. Just a little too fluffy.

If I could, I'd probably give it 2.5 stars.

[Ron Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lisa Jarnot's blog makes me crazy, and is a case study in why some people shouldn't have blogs, but her poetry is consistently amazing. A must-read (like her earlier books Ring of Fire and Black Dog Songs) for anyone wondering what important contemporary poetry books are being written today.

[cristiana]

finally in a place where i can actually walk to a bookstore that has lisa's new one. mucho excited to read.

[Carrie]

Iambics.

[Elizabeth Metzger · Rating 4 out of 5]

"don't bother me, Agamemnon,
I am busy with my boat."

And lots of made up words.

[Leslie]

I like the things this book contains: bucolic scenes. made-up words. jokes. musicality. strategic “yo”s and "o"s.

O poems. When they're good they're good, yo.

[Andy Stallings · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bullshit, Flood.