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Decennia
Poems across five decades of life - the 1950s to the 1990s - by esteemed Wisconsin poet Jan Chronister. "Chronister has fully inhabited these moments—paying full attention to each detail. She pulls us deftly through her world by rebuilding images that lead us deep into all seasons of life and place. Her ability to ground us in this world alongside her, to invite us into her head and surprise us, is the true gift of this collection." author of 'Louder Birds', winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize
158 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 14, 2021
Unforgettable things happen to us. Those pivotal events take on new meaning with the passage of time. Jan Chronister looks closely at those events in her past in her latest collection, Decennia (Truth Serum Press, 2020). The title means “decades.” Chronister splits her life into five of them and examines each in detail.
Chronister balances brutality with humor, much like life. She doesn’t look away. She describes the childhood impression of her grandfather slaughtering hogs in “I Never Eat Strawberry Sundaes.” In, “Fishing,” she proudly displays a stringer of fish she caught, but
My dad executes the fish
with a quick whack
She reports this when her fish is served to her to eat:
That’s when it stopped being fun.
But, you’ll have fun as Chronister makes you laugh with poems like “Self-portrait as a Tea Kettle” and “Encyclopedia.” Time moves on. Major events in each decade land hard, like when she witnesses segregation in the South. You’ll be willing to bear witness to difficult things because Chronister coaxes you along with a chuckle a few minutes later. Like when she describes inattentive young people in church in “Object Lesson.” Then you alternate to challenges again: Church steeples puncture the membrane / of the stretched out winter sky in “Milwaukee Bus Ride.”
She “finds a husband in Florida” and moves back to Wisconsin to run a small farm in the 1970’s. Even the title describing this change points to new perspectives that come with age: “Another of my Nine Lives.”
I’d rather plant seeds,
watch them grow in the sun,
see how far
we can make things run.
Later in “Newcomers,” she describes her family as living off the land, / harmless as trout. After children arrive, in “Is This a Mid-life Crisis?” she asks, Can we still wonder / or are we supposed to KNOW? These perspectives don’t come while you’re in the middle of hard work with the land and kids. You can’t pause and think until later. This poetry is impossible without accumulated time.
There’s a car crash and loss. The poetry of her life is clear-eyed and unafraid. Yet, somehow, this examination of the decades leaves you stunned and happy at her (and our own) resilience. Throughout, there is the sense of the natural world giving Chronister strength. Her humor joins her unflinching observation to power Decennia. In “Muse,” the second half of her double etheree lands like the book’s benediction:
…She flies back through alphabet
downpours, letters clinging to her wings,
visits lilacs, irises and
echinacea. She finds me
in the garden, breathes words
in my ear. The sun
that fed her in
Mexico
now feeds
me.
Chronister balances brutality with humor, much like life. She doesn’t look away. She describes the childhood impression of her grandfather slaughtering hogs in “I Never Eat Strawberry Sundaes.” In, “Fishing,” she proudly displays a stringer of fish she caught, but
My dad executes the fish
with a quick whack
She reports this when her fish is served to her to eat:
That’s when it stopped being fun.
But, you’ll have fun as Chronister makes you laugh with poems like “Self-portrait as a Tea Kettle” and “Encyclopedia.” Time moves on. Major events in each decade land hard, like when she witnesses segregation in the South. You’ll be willing to bear witness to difficult things because Chronister coaxes you along with a chuckle a few minutes later. Like when she describes inattentive young people in church in “Object Lesson.” Then you alternate to challenges again: Church steeples puncture the membrane / of the stretched out winter sky in “Milwaukee Bus Ride.”
She “finds a husband in Florida” and moves back to Wisconsin to run a small farm in the 1970’s. Even the title describing this change points to new perspectives that come with age: “Another of my Nine Lives.”
I’d rather plant seeds,
watch them grow in the sun,
see how far
we can make things run.
Later in “Newcomers,” she describes her family as living off the land, / harmless as trout. After children arrive, in “Is This a Mid-life Crisis?” she asks, Can we still wonder / or are we supposed to KNOW? These perspectives don’t come while you’re in the middle of hard work with the land and kids. You can’t pause and think until later. This poetry is impossible without accumulated time.
There’s a car crash and loss. The poetry of her life is clear-eyed and unafraid. Yet, somehow, this examination of the decades leaves you stunned and happy at her (and our own) resilience. Throughout, there is the sense of the natural world giving Chronister strength. Her humor joins her unflinching observation to power Decennia. In “Muse,” the second half of her double etheree lands like the book’s benediction:
…She flies back through alphabet
downpours, letters clinging to her wings,
visits lilacs, irises and
echinacea. She finds me
in the garden, breathes words
in my ear. The sun
that fed her in
Mexico
now feeds
me.
October 26, 2020
Wisconsin poet Jan Chronister has lived a lot of life. She’s put most of it into 130 pages, arranged by decades, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Although this impressive volume is about her life, readers will no doubt find bits of their experiences intertwined in its spare poems. From her beginnings in Canada to her current home in northern Wisconsin, this child who didn’t fit in grows up and finds a husband in Florida, raises two children, becomes a working mother, suffers loss, and finds redemption in poetry.
One of my favorites from the 1950s section is “Haying Time,” where the smell of cut hay on a hot summer day irons out the cares of a child and later, evokes nostalgic spirituality. Many of her poems in the 60s and 70s deal with hard topics: sexual and physical abuse, theft, drug use, discrimination, sinking ships.
As Chronister’s life becomes more settled, the latter sections are less gritty. Two of my favorites from these are “Madeline Island, August 1996,” which chronicles her daughter’s trip to college in Madison after vacationing on the island. On the drive back home, Chronister’s “heart cracks open --/a lightning-struck tree./I pull over, cry eighteen/years of tears/before I can continue.” Relatable to any parent. The other is “I Got a Gun for Christmas--,” where her husband interprets an offhand remark as a Christmas wish, which doesn’t quite work out.
What I want to know is how many poems must Jan have written during her life to put together this collection? So many. If you read her book and ever see Jan, you’ll have the secret knowledge that she attended Woodstock and is related to Frank Lloyd Wright. But, of course, you won’t know everything.
Let’s hope she lives another five decades so we can see what unfolds next.
One of my favorites from the 1950s section is “Haying Time,” where the smell of cut hay on a hot summer day irons out the cares of a child and later, evokes nostalgic spirituality. Many of her poems in the 60s and 70s deal with hard topics: sexual and physical abuse, theft, drug use, discrimination, sinking ships.
As Chronister’s life becomes more settled, the latter sections are less gritty. Two of my favorites from these are “Madeline Island, August 1996,” which chronicles her daughter’s trip to college in Madison after vacationing on the island. On the drive back home, Chronister’s “heart cracks open --/a lightning-struck tree./I pull over, cry eighteen/years of tears/before I can continue.” Relatable to any parent. The other is “I Got a Gun for Christmas--,” where her husband interprets an offhand remark as a Christmas wish, which doesn’t quite work out.
What I want to know is how many poems must Jan have written during her life to put together this collection? So many. If you read her book and ever see Jan, you’ll have the secret knowledge that she attended Woodstock and is related to Frank Lloyd Wright. But, of course, you won’t know everything.
Let’s hope she lives another five decades so we can see what unfolds next.
October 19, 2020
Artfully crafted, poet Jan Chronister takes her reader on an autobiographical voyage of her life through the decades -- sharing the lessons she learned and the insights she gained. Tightly and honestly written, each poem is meant to be savored for its power and its beauty. The collection is a trip through time and geography -- from small town Wisconsin to Woodstock. I have found myself returning, flipping through the pages and savoring the poems. Gary C. Banker, author of From a Yellowed Photo
January 30, 2026
In Decennia, Jan Chronister unfolds five decades with a poet’s graceful eye, stitching memory into moments both intimate and historic.
From the quiet of a 1950s kitchen to the cultural echoes of Woodstock, her poems breathe life into time inviting the reader to walk softly through the seasons of a well observed world. A quietly powerful collection.
From the quiet of a 1950s kitchen to the cultural echoes of Woodstock, her poems breathe life into time inviting the reader to walk softly through the seasons of a well observed world. A quietly powerful collection.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews