Paper House

By Jean Janzen

A cold wind, but not a bitter one, blows through the poems in this collection by celebrated poet, Jean Janzen. Here she writes about aging, intimate love, the bearing away of children, light, and as always, memory. A cold wind, but not a bitter one, blows through the poems in Part 1 of Jean Janzen's newest collection. Her refusal to turn aside from any difficulty, any loss, here presses her writing into firmer edges than ever before. She writes with cool tones; she witnesses now with a longer view, layers of life stacked against each other. But the subjects are her choice onesaging, intimate love, the bearing away of children, light, and always memory. How does she see so keenly above and below the surface at the same time? Motion and rhythms and round words roll through the poems in Part 2, the more familiar hallmarks of Janzen's rumbling universe. She brings longing to every page, and then calls us in, gently, yet irresistibly. Among these 43 new poems are "Skin and Air," "The Uprooting," "Lifting You," "Architecture of Falling," and "Holding On to the Walls." Janzen has received The Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the author of three books of poetry published by Good Books: Snake in the Parsonage, Tasting the Dust, and Piano in the Vineyard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781680992571

Book preview

PART I

INVOCATION

The Frisians still keep cows

in their houses, down the hall.

I hear them bawling in first light,

and turn in my guest bed.

I’m in childhood again,

tossing on flour-sack sheets.

But now the milky dawn

pulls me back into dream –

a congregation of cows is joining

mine; doors swing open,

the bulky bodies shift among us,

hooves and horns, as we make room

and embrace them, our faces pressing

against the wide bellies. All of us

fed and washed under one roof,

singing together at dawn,

our longing and need rising

into the rafters. All of us

in the field, grazing and lying

down together in the cool,

redolent mud until a child

calls us, and we follow, cows first,

single-file, their udders and tails

swinging us home.

DECEMBER 1933

The body remembers, even the newborn,

last light drifting against crib bars,

crackle of the stove, a figure moving

past with a lamp. Then stomp of boots,

chatter, and song – children’s voices

around a resounding piano: "Of the Father’s

love begotten, e’re the world began to be,"

tones clear as water held in air.

It is the night when the whole world pauses

to listen. I will be carried under starlight

following the singers into the schoolhouse.

A crowded room, scent of fresh cedar

and damp wool, the silence of unlit

candles – beauty with its edge of terror.

Conceived in fire, I will survive by fire.

The ancient story streams through

the throats of children, pitches of creation

melting icy windows in this black century,

my small body held against the warm,

familiar beat, I am, I am.

TABLE

There is nothing to eat,

seek it where you will,

but the body of the Lord.

– William Carlos Williams

Hen running in the field,

her stunted wings spreading

without lift or flight.

And yet, the quick dance

of her scratching claws.

She raises a circle of dust,

she settles into it.

Light of the world

in every speck against

her feathers,

nourishing fire

in the crushed worm

caught in her yellow bill

and in this bright yolk

on my plate.

And from the blazing grass

through