Jennifer Jean’s poetry collections are VOZ (Lily Books), The Fool (Big Table), and Object Lesson (Lily Books) which explores sex-trafficking and objectification in America. She’s also released the teaching resource Object Lesson: a Guide to Writing Poetry (Lily Books). Her poetry, prose, and co-translations have appeared in POETRY, Rattle, The Common, On the Seawall, Waxwing, Terrain, and as an Academy of American Poets “Poem-a-Day.” She’s been awarded fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Disquiet/Dzanc Books, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Kolkata International Poetry Festival; as well, she received an Ambassador for Peace Award from the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jennifer curates and hosts the Wilder Words reading series, and is the senior program manager of 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center’s online writing program.
Selections from Voz, Winner of the 2023 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize
The Doors of Perception
My father leapt on stage at the Hollywood Bowl
to grab drum & cymbal sticks
from a star—he wanted to be
a star, a door, a Door. White. Security
thugs dragged him off
John Densmore. He saw doors everywhere, he saw Doors
everywhere—at the Whisky,
the Beanery, the Magic Mountain fest—&
in primary colors
in Windward, Oakwood, or North of Rose. He wanted
to forget war in Venice, to be a door in Venice
& face the faux canals.
Later, he flew to Paris to pay homage to the Door who died
with a head of Alexandrian hair.
He carried huge pale poppies
to the “Poets’ Corner” in the Père Lachaise,
to this stranger under a cream coffin
door nailed shut. He said, Break on through.
He put a poppy in his pocket
like a receipt,
& chased daylight till he landed
in L.A., saw a wave of white
stars rippling
on the Pacific on new moon nights,
when the ever-present rust cloud was blown out to sea.
He found a motel room door, particle door, & shut it
on all that he owned
for fifty years. He lived there, adding up primary colors,
hour to hour in Bliss Consciousness—
crossing his legs on the bed, letting electric snow
hush the TV. Hush
gunfire &
blood. He forgot his father’s father’s Cabo Verde
& let himself be Italian there—
a different kind of Venetian—because who he really was was
too close to Black.
Against the Wind
All horses & homeless folk
go to the beach
when fires rip through California canyons. They run
through surf—against the wind,
away from the flame of the night.
When the choke smoke dies,
they canter home
to campfire stones,
tent poles,
push carts, hoof brush wire, salt
block racks, & spoons.
The flats of certain spatulas.
Not everything unnatural is gone.
In the fortified Getty Museum, Saint Martin
Dividing His Cloak with a Beggar,
The “Piebald” Horse, & Van Gogh’s
Irises are safe
too. Sometimes, I feel less than
a work of art. Like a horse awash
in a wave not a blaze. Like I’m home-free
when the ash is thick
on ground I’ve slept on for months.
Sometimes, I wait for miles of asters,
blue dicks, & desert
pincushions—for an after fire
superbloom—to feel
useful. Created. Though, I know
that’s as unwise as a California breeze
after a decade of drought.
The Pacific
Without a boogie board,
you’d fling your body
into the curve of the Pacific.
Without baby oil, you’d still burn
& be tender for days.
Without a blanket, you’d drop
your faded Eddie shirt,
sit—& later, shake it out,
mop off your salt. Without
shades, you’d razor
your hand like a visor—squint
at five footers rushing up,
at gulls. Without money
you’d drink from a fluoridated bubbler—
you’d eat that deflated pb&j,
box of raisins, yellow apple.
Without a comb, your hair would turn
to loose dreads—damp
with foam, with mist. Without shoes,
your hot, calloused,
hobbling feet
would be fleet, would crave
the Pacific. Without a boom box,
you’d hear other people’s music—
& walk the slanted shore
till you found your Summer
song. Without some body’s love,
there’d be a miracle—
there’d be today.
(purchase at https://bookshop.org/p/books/voz-jennifer-jean/19004710)