The Truant Lover: Poems

by Juliet Patterson

Juliet Patterson's first collection of poems, The Truant Lover, selected by Jean Valentine, is a pastiche of American voices, a well of poems with passages that hint and nod at past poets while remaining wholly their own.

Genres: Poetry

74 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Natural History of a Suicide (Milkweed Editions, September 2022) and two full-length poetry collections, Threnody, (Nightboat Books 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Audre Lorde Poetry Award, and The Truant Lover, (Nightboat Books, 2006), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award. A recipient of a Arts & Letters Susan Atefat Prize in non-fiction, and a Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, she has also been awarded fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minneapolis-based Creative Community Leadership Institute (formerly the Institute for Community and Creative Development). She teaches creative writing and literature at St. Olaf College and is also a faculty member of the college’s Environmental Conversation program. She lives in Minneapolis on the west bank of the Mississippi near the Great River Road with her partner, the writer Rachel Moritz, and their son.

Reviews

[William Stobb · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are lovely surrealist poems, with transformations, leaps of imagination, lovely control of voice and tone. They're yummy like chocolate. Or red wine. Or chocolate covered red wine.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juliet Patterson's first collection of poems, The Truant Lover, selected by Jean Valentine for the 2004 Nightboat Books poetry contest, is a pastiche of American voices, a well of poems with passages that hint and nod at past poets while remaining wholly their own. Patterson is a true rock star on the page, with poems ranging from broken syntax to the sparsest phrase to the Queen's English. This is a highly philosophical book, one that does not flinch as it goes to the heart of who we are.