Borrowed Light

by Jennifer Horne

poetry collection

34 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Jennifer Horne is a writer, editor, and teacher who grew up in Arkansas and has lived for many years in Alabama. Her book Working the Dirt: An Anthology of Southern Poets (2003) brought together over 100 poems about farming and gardening in the South. Her two co-edited books (with Wendy Reed), All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality (2006) and Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality (2012), have received acclaim for the high quality of the essays and their contribution to discussions about religion and spirituality in the American South. Her most recent book, Tell the World You’re a Wildflower (2014) is a collection of loosely interwoven stories in the voices of southern women and girls of different ages and backgrounds. Bottle Tree (2010) is a book of poems focusing on Horne’s experiences as a southern woman; her second collection of poems, Little Wanderer, a collection of road and travel poems, will be published this summer by the Irish publisher Salmon Poetry. She is currently working on a poetry chapbook, a new collection of short stories, and a memoir-influenced book about Scott and Zelda biographer Sara Mayfield.

Reviews

[Carolyn Breckinridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Borrowed Light' by Alabama's Poet Laureate, Jennifer Horne, is her newest published collection, and entices the reader with beautiful natural images, gentle assertions of the strength of women and the importance of their personal identities, love, and some mischievousness, including a retelling of the eviction from the Garden of Eden. As always, Ms. Horne speaks through her poetry with gentle but assertive grace. The emotions evoked and images honed will remain long after this book is closed.

[Nancy Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Merriam Webster defines “borrowed light” as “reflected light” which enters “an interior and otherwise dark room or passage from an adjoining space.” As one reads through this volume of poetry, the full meaning of the book’s title becomes apparent. These poems emerge from the quiet of the poet’s reflection, of “seeing” light in ordinary places where it can be missed if we move too quickly through the world.
One early poem invites us to “wake up, wake up each day/and greet what light arrives.” And indeed we do, as we join the poet in the most everyday activities, such as shopping for a Simplicity dress pattern, or performing domestic duties, where we may find ourselves in “acquiescence,” until we must “close the door/and be alone/with [our] own thoughts.”
Other poems connect the human soul to the soul of nature, where there are “so many kinds of fruit to bear,/so sad not to”; where “A dry spell calls on our deepest roots./When did you plan/to live?/For what were you born?”; where “Every plant and animal and insect that exists/shows us every day that we go on, not as ourselves,/but resurrected, fecund with new life.”
I write this during the current pandemic of COVID-19; these poems speak to me deeply about the condition of uncertainly, fear, and isolation. But the poems are universally relevant. Horne does not allow us to despair in face of loss or fear. Through ancestral stories and memoir-like prose poems, she reminds us of the ongoing cycles of life and death, of creativity. We must go on. We must continue to create. She reminds us in “guest house”: “knowing the day will come/of leaving and goodbyes,/make your art now.”