The Figs Are Ripe and We Have Stories
by Jennfer Dotson
64 Poems ~ 121 pages
Price: $17.50
Publisher: Starboard Press
ISBN: 978-1-969969-02-7
To Order: Starboard Press
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Jennifer Dotson’s compelling new collection of poetry is a hurricane of verse that blends the poet’s mastery at immersive storytelling with her profound insight into life celebrated through its valleys and hills, complete with frequent doses of tongue-in-cheek irony.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
Her work reveals familiarity with poetic styles from ancient to contemporary … the best aspect of this book isn’t even the excellent craft but the lyrical movement of the poems as Dotson explores histories, memories, and dreams, permitting us to construct meaning through the resonance of ‘shared and separate struggles.’
–Ann E. Michael, author of Abundance/Diminishment and The Red Queen Hypothesis
Dotson sculpts dazzling forms, constructed with precision and elegance … a poetic Maestra, Dotson’s language is quiet yet candid and clever.
–Christine Swanberg, Poet Laureate of Rockford Emerita
The Figs Are Ripe and We Have Stories suggests that Jennifer Dotson’s life is defined not only by the narratives she draws from personal memory, but also by half-told tales that surround in history and contemporary culture, needing only a poet to make them lively again in a greater fullness of music and rhythm … Dotson’s poems share what she begins to hear.
– Stephen Haven, author of The Flight from Meaning
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jennifer Dotson is the author of two previous full-length poetry collections. Clever Gretel was the winner of the fist Journal of Modern Poetry Book Prize and published by Chicago Poetry Press in 2013. Late Night Talk Show Fantasy & Other Poems was published by Kelsay Books in 2020. She founded Highland Park Poetry in 2007 initially as a website and local poetry month celebration. It has since grown into a year-round venture of poetry programming and publishing opportunities for poets and students.
FROM THE BOOK:
Cursed Slumber
by Jennifer Dotson
My going to bed rituals work just fine.
Brew an herbal tea, a calm and soothing potion.
Brush my teeth, cleansing with repetitive motion.
Read a few pages if a book – my bedtime story.
Soon the words dance on the page as my eyelids
droop and the spell of sleep envelops me.
Now I need a charm to keep me in that state
through the dark hours of the night.
My dreams are hexed or it’s the ghosts
in my mind, which refuse to let me rest.
The cat yawns and shifts to another spot
on the bed. I am up again – a restless shiver
or a shadow on the moon. I need a broom
to sweep the cobwebs from my mind and
conjure me some sweet repose.
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