The Surface of Last Scattering: Poems

By Gray Jacobik

In the opening poem of The Surface of last Scattering, the poet asks "How shape a full-bodied intelligent speaking for an open-hearted listening?" In pursuit of the possibilities engendered by this question, Gray Jacobik writes meditative lyrics, essay-poems and prose-poems as grounded in the mind as in the body, poems that assume, and reward, an open-hearted listening. Ascribing to no one school of poetics, and no one style, Jacobik is unafraid of either spare language or a language of high color. She uses a range of resources from verisimilitude to abstraction to write poems that are at once instruments of knowing and passionate songs.

Emily

I spent my birthday with a woman who might
have been myself, thirty years ago, myself
without the early tragedies. Her thirst for

experience, her talent for using it, I know as clearly
as, after a long day, I know the small of my back.
Her sweetness is the sweetness that once held me.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1881515206
• ISBN13: 9781881515203
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Trp: The University Press of Shsu
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Poetry

I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Jacobik at The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in Ct. this past summer. Her voice is powerful, her gifts great. Perspective, my favorite poem from this latest collection is my favorite, transporting me to a hill side, watching her husband journey home to her. Jacobik's use of language moves me, creating dreamy imagery that lifts me to the places where she dwells, and if only for a moment , I stand side by side with her watching the world unfold through her eyes. Not the stuff of rainy days, this collection begs to be read again and again.