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Jorie Graham's poetry insists that 'the visible world' exists: but what is
its existence? Beyond the merely subjective, the merely lyric, she ventures
with philosophical rigour into an area 'saturated with phenomena', in Helen
Vendler's phrase, a place of shifting perspectives, abrupt changes,
sometimes vertiginous in their reversals, but always moving towards
possible celebration.
Those who argue that poetry and science are at each other's throats
will find here a poetry which brings together in tense equilibrium science,
philosophy and history. This is a new kind of narrative, offering forms
which are open and full of possibility. Graham's is an inclusive art which
takes big risks. John Ashbery describes her 'utterance that swings with the
conviction of Blake's, that one does not want to stop listening to. She is
one of the finest poets writing today.'
Praise for Jorie Graham:'The poems in Jorie Graham's Sea Change might look unapproachable but they are models of clarity and purity.' - Nicola Smyth, 'Books of the Year', the Independent, 28 December 2008
'One of the finest poets writing today.'
John Ashbery.
'She is among the most important poets in North American literature today.'
Peyton Brien, University of Toronto, 1995.
'Jorie Graham is a poet of staggering intelligence.'
James Tate.
'There is a buoyancy in Graham's poetry, a freshness of vision which is rare in contemporary poetry.'
Roger Caldwell, Times Literary Supplement, 27th June 2003
'After each new book by Graham, I wonder what she will do next. Her courage in remaking her style over the years is exemplary.'
Helen Vendler, London Review of Books, 23rd January 2003.
'...to read under Graham's powerful impetus is to have one's consciousness, like molten glass, pulled into unforeseen - and sometimes almost unbearable - shapes.'
Helen Vendler, London Review of Books, 23rd January 2003.
'...one of our most highly imaginative and innovative poets. Her speculative and sensual poetry echoes an aesthetic and cultural past but is, truly, like nothing we've seen before.'
David St. John, The Los Angeles Times, 1996.
'There are erotic poems, elegiac poems, and there are dauntingly difficult, allusive and even impenetrable poems. Throughout there is a powerful, engaging intelligence and an affirming lyric grace.'
Stephen Matterson on The Errancy, in Poetry Ireland Review, vol. 62.
'Like all good poets, she illuminates moments, but she is like no one else, neither in her rhythms, nor in her insistence on opening up, scrutinizing, and even reversing our experience of time and space within these moments.'
Stephen Burt, Times Literary Supplement, 17th May 1996.
'Graham shows us a future direction in American poetry, and that future is a welcome place.'
The Harvard Review.
'A mesmerising American voice; one wants to hear its ontinuation.'
Helen Vendler, The New Yorker.
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I dig my hands into the absolute. The surface breaks
