Jane Springer is the author of three poetry collections: Dear Blackbird, Murder Ballad, and Moth. Her work’s been featured in The Best American Poetry and Pushcart anthologies and she’s received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and MacDowell. She currently teaches literature and creative writing at Hamilton College, in central New York.
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Dear Blackbird,PoemsFrom"Lamentations"
Whitman kept all the sleepers to himself but one, & she wasn’t just a demon
in the sack. When she wasn’t sleeping by daylight, she was the demon
slinging a house shoe at her children over the front seat of the Plymouth
while simultaneously steering it between the orgasmic, careening semis &
Beetle Bug Blue, Piddiddle, Beetle Bug Black.
Dear Blackbird,:Poems -
Dear Blackbird,PoemsFrom"The Very Best Woman in All the World"
The very best woman in all the world
auditions for Juliet’s part.
But blinded by spotlights
on the silver gilt balcony, she leans too
far out over the set &,
hand over heart, plunges
into the orchestra pit. That is the way
of answering love letters
voiced up from the dark –
Dear Blackbird,:Poems -
Dear Blackbird,PoemsFrom"The Borrowed Wife"
The husband is a figment of the imagination: Continually wearing a rented
tux & clipping new boutonnières from the neighbor’s garden. He
is as the mayfly who exists for 24 hours then dies
to be replaced with his identical self. He is everything that arrives on time
& in his suitcase he stores enough glass slippers to fit anysized foot.
You will know him by his locks: Bronze.
Dear Blackbird,:Poems
“Jane Springer's poetry, anthologized in the pages of Dear Blackbird, . . . documents her impressive flair for free verse lyrics that are not restricted to the boundaries of ordinary stanza sequences of formats but are as original in their composition as they are in the content. Lovers of language and appreciators of poetry will enjoy the originality and engagement of Springer's deftly crafted verse.” —The Midwest Book Review
“[Murder Ballad] is a tangled ode to the South, filled with coon stew, frog guts, pig shit, the violence of rape, slavery, and regret. Springer wrote it with the deep, sisterly love of a drunken, wayward brother she knows better than anyone.” —Ploughshares
The Whiting selection committee found this “thoroughly imaginative, thrilling work. She makes splendid connections between the narrow world she knew as a child and the intimate rhythms she acquired as a poet. She is a poet full of verve and lyrical passion, a new and authentic American voice. There’s as much verbal energy in a single poem as many poets use in an entire book. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and play in the mud of Poetry Land.”