Now, Now
Poems by Jennifer Maier
In Now, Now, Jennifer Maier's second poetry collection, time is of the essence.
Moving readily through the porous membranes of past, present, and future, the speaker asks, What is each moment but the swirling confluence (or shy first meeting) of past and future—of what happened, and what-has-not-yet-happened but will?
Such phenomenological questions are sparked by ordinary events: a friend's passion for jigsaw puzzles; an imagined conversation with a neighbor's dog; a meditation on the uses of modern poetry. Here, in language both elegant and agile, the author probes beneath the surface of happenstance, moving with depth, humor, and compassion into the heart of our shared predicament: that of loving what we cannot keep.
Reviews
“Nothing gets by the poet Jennifer Maier, whether it be the oddness of celebrating the New Year instead of mourning the old or the way the smell of frying bacon can evoke a Depression-era drama between neighbors or how what she calls ‘a life of ordinary good’ can be lost in an instant. Her poems capture the essence of their subjects with the wit and style of a lucid and profoundly merciful intelligence. She sees again and again into the flawed heart of things, even into her own heart, and offers an understanding that is like forgiveness.”
—Mark Jarman
“Now, Now is a collection dwelling in possibility, where memory works forward as well as back, turning time into a ‘collapsible cup,’ and where clarity of impassioned thought coexists in uncanny relation to ambiguity of meaning. With remarkable grace and wit, Maier brings to light the seen and the unseen; and with a coolness of tone possessing unmistakable authority, she transforms glimpses and impressions into images and metaphors that carry us into the heart of things.”
—Phillis Levin
