Before You Know It: Prose Poems 1970-2005

by Louis Jenkins

Prose Poems from 35 years with a forward by Mark Rylance

Genres: Poetry

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Louis Jenkins was an American prose poet .He lived in Duluth, Minnesota, with his wife Ann for over four decades. His poems have been published in a number of literary magazines and anthologies. Jenkins was a guest on A Prairie Home Companion numerous times and was also featured on The Writer's Almanac.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can honestly say this is the best book of poetry I've ever read, as it's the only book of poetry I've ever read cover to cover. Mark Rylance's Tony acceptance speech for his role in the Broadway revival of "Boeing Boeing" turned me on to Louis Jenkins, as the entirety of the speech was "The Back Country."

Each bit of prose - never longer than a page - wraps you into a world that is both utterly ordinary and endlessly riveting. No matter if you are from the middle of nowhere or the middle of everywhere, these poems can strike a chord of humanity. I plan to explore more of Jenkins' work, in hopes of making sense of the strange and beautiful world in which we live.

[Brian Beatty · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading a handful of my poems, Louis Jenkins once suggested that maybe I should read more poetry before I tried my hand at writing it. So clearly I appreciate his work more than he appreciates mine. This collection spanning 35 years reveals a consistently wry point-of-view rooted in the domestic and everyday. Prose poetry is a flexible form ideal for these worthwhile observations.

[Tandava Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of prose poems. Jenkins has a very consistent style over 35 years, so you pretty much know what you’re getting cover to cover. Sometimes I wish they were brought to more of a focus at the ends, rather than wandering off, but a number of them I quite like.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun book of poems I randomly found while helping Nina organize her basement. Fun Minnesota vibe. Picked four that were favorites- be about a spider crawling up the wall, one about a wrong turn, and one about too much snow.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was recommended to read _An Almost Human Gesture_ but couldn't find a copy, so I picked up this one instead, which contains poems from that period-- the book is arranged by blocks of years instead of by books, so I am guessing a little here, but I think I can guess which poems were in that other volume-- though the phrase itself appears too early for that to totally work (the book came out in 88, the phrase appears in the section 1970-87). Maybe I was wrong?

Anyhow, I found myself a lot more drawn to the later poems, those from 1990 onward. Here, it felt to me, like Jenkins was more focused, more keen on what he was doing-- these prose poems are like little comic monologues. Sometimes they'll tell a funny story, but more often they'll trail a non-sequitor or take a phrase at its literal meaning. A regular strategy is to think about the past, and then the speaker finds himself there, trapped, in a time where he doesn't belong.

Many of the poems are funny, as I said, and there's some great writing about snow in the later poems; these poems about snow and Lake Superior seem to replace the earlier poems about fishing, and smaller lakes:)

I do think the poems, for all Jenkins talk in the intro about continuing to revise the oldest poems, need one more read through-- there are some typos here, I think, which threw me off. And then, in a book that otherwise reads really well, sentence to sentence, you'll find something a phrase that's pretty puzzling.

A solid group of poems. If you like, let's say, Goldbarth but wish he were a little more pastoral, you'd probably like Jenkins. He's less angry, but still curious about the world in the way Goldbarth is at his best, and it's mostly the same world, one where modernity has happened and we know we're not supposed to notice but sometimes can't help ourselves.

[Tam G · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-4*

I'm not sure what to rate this. Louis Jenkins can be all over the place for me. Sometimes his humor tickles me and definitively roots me into a geographic place and time. Other times one word throws me out of the poem with it's novelty or feel.

This is a retrospective of his work over time. I found some periods better than others. Worth reading if you have a curiosity about Jenkins.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jenkins writes small vignettes and observations with a wry sense of humor. Delightful in their way, but not really the sort of thing I'd return to again and again, which for me is one of the litmus tests of poetry. I did take a couple of his prose poems to craft mimic poem exercises that I think will be good for my 9th graders, so I certainly appreciate that, but I don't see seeking out more Louis Jenkins to read.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice smattering of old ones and a few new ones. L. Jenkins never fails to delight me.