Still Falling: Poems

by Jennifer Grotz

A searching new collection by a poet who “pays exquisite attention to everything she encounters” ( The Washington Post )


Still Falling expands on Jennifer Grotz’s precise sense of craft and voice to investigate new territory in this astonishing collection. These poems are emotionally raw and introspective, exploring the profound capaciousness of grief. Grotz carefully and deftly carries the weight of losses and their aftermaths―the deaths of the poet’s mentors, friends, and mother; the endings of relationships; and the enclosures of a life spent in attendance to the world in a state of wanting rather than truly living. Here also are poems that movingly and crucially decide what dedicating one’s life to poetry might require.


But in the wake of painful loss, Grotz writes toward “this world, the living.” Her poems reveal and meditate on the paradoxical relationship between the literal and the figurative, at the heart of poetry itself, like the darkness and light of Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro. Still Falling is a book to be read slowly, calling readers back into the stillness of being, finding hope, “not death / where darkness and silence and dust are / only darkness and silence and dust.”

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2023

Reviews

[johnny ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

dreamy, yet raw.

[Christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This was literally awesome. That’s the only word I can think of. Awesome.

Jennifer Gratz’s, “Still Falling” is a poetry book of storytelling enveloped in nature and the senses, like the way a freight train desperately wants to be heard, or greetings of the crow. It surrounds grief, shows the aftermath of certain devastating moments and relationships we all experience, and observes the world/nature in such a distinctive, intelligent way.

When I first read this, I was searching for answers, for explanations, for some sort of resolve. However, this book is not focused on giving the juicy details of our despair, of our trauma. It gives us just enough. For example, it seems as if the “you” in these poems, which I read as most of the time as the same person the speaker seems to know intimately, remains unnamed. In poems like, “Who Understands”, I’m left with more questions than when I began. While in other poems, like “Grief”, grief becomes something so distinct, so obvious and easy to understand that I’m right there. I’m standing at the stove with the speaker, sweating and crying and coping just as they are. What the poems have in common though is intimacy and the speaker’s curiosity and wisdom despite it.

This book is full of honesty, of relationships, the sudden and the gradual loss of them. It’s curious of humanity, of love, of death. I think of “Staring at the Sun”, though most of these poems end or include some sort of philosophical or unanswerable question. This is what tells me the speaker has so much left to discover. At the same time, the speaker is incredibly wise. They are smart enough to ask the questions no one else thinks of. Besides its theme, the imagery in this book is perfection. It’s obscure and sensory and unique. Gosh. This is such an incredible book of poetry. I love love loved it.

This was literally awesome. That’s the only word I can think of. Awesome.

some of favorite lines:

"At first, like grief, snow covers everything"

"He weighed 953 pounds. To make him stop, / all I had to do was hold my breath."

"I wrapped my hand around cattail / and squeezed: spongy and veloured / as an espresso-soaked ladyfinger"

[Kozbi BC]

“Say something true but not despairing, I told myself.
That was how I chose silence or it chose me.

To be by water is a kind of waiting, something
Eternally incomplete. If I watch long enough,

The sea is all green and purple, I can see it
As the ancient Greeks did, who had no word for blue.” - Greens and Purples

[Sam Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

AGH, I loved this one so much.
I am so thankful to Graywolf Press, Jennifer Grotz, and NetGalley for granting me advanced access to this beauty of a book before it publishes on May 2, 2023. I was truly captivated by the heartbreaking prose and metaphors that were presented over the course of these 50+ pages.

[Sara Caflisch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greens and Purples

…


“I have become too interested in silence. It is like
finding the single position that causes no pain.

And the end isn’t silent, it’s when
everyone starts speaking in different languages.

That’s what God does when we get too proud.
He makes us lonely.”

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book I’ve read by this poet, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The collection started out a little slow with a couple of poems in the first half of the book that I thought could’ve been tightened up better, especially given the poet’s esteemed bio, but by the end of the book it really picked up steam — I loved the momentum that the collection gives way to. The deeper questioning at play, the exploration of grief and the human condition. I’ve found that many poetry books today grow sluggish and boring 3/4 of the way through, but this book is one of those more rare poetry collections that get way better the more you read it. Overall, a really good book. I’m a fan of this poet’s work now, and I’ll definitely be picking up her other collections.

[Em H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quiet collection. It has a stillness to it that I appreciated. It deals with loss and grief in ways that felt comforting in their relatability. It's a collection that feels like an early morning walk in November, a meditative chill in the air as you prepare for winter. I didn't love every poem, but it's a collection I can't wait to revisit again.

[Luke Gorham · Rating 5 out of 5]

4½. Surprise of the year. Random purchase and read. There's such casual brilliance to everything here. There's no intrusive, overarching thematizing; just small profundities mined for observation and experience. And Grotz's images:

"Just throw a skin of bread into the water and see: / the large fish rise from the dark to tear off little bites / while smelt scatter like a shattered alphabet."

[H]

"that's what god does when we get too proud. he makes us lonely."

[Anne, Unfinished Woman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant poems. Especially like "Staring into the Sun", and "the Crows".

[Jiapei Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An accessible volume of poems in memory of lost lives, love, and time.

[Tyler Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of great poems in here. A journey through grief. Last three poems hit HARD.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this quietly devastating collection. Standouts for me include "The Conversion of Paul," "The Salt Mine," "The Living Hand," and "The Morning Will Be Bright, and Wrong."

[emma]

“Where / darkness is just / a purgatory of things unseen. / I stand right there, in that particular dark.”

[Tillie H · Rating 4 out of 5]

To exist on earth is, if you are lucky, is to be alone then with loved ones, or with loved ones then alone..
I was needing some poetry to process emotions and these hit so well

[elinor · Rating 4 out of 5]

love the writing style

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A steady, mournful discussion on grief and death.

[Sams · Rating 5 out of 5]

“How it felt to have loved to the end, and then past the very end.”
So many gorgeous poems in this collection