Sea Change

For years now the genius of Jorie Graham's headlong, nigh logorrheic style has been to simultaneously court and deny the identity of the poetic line, allowing potential linear thrust to occupy a ground beyond the line but short of the paragraph. In Sea Change that compromise takes form as a margin-to-margin mass of words counterpoised (or transfixed) by a series of shorter lines running in a slender column down the center of the page-- not so much a structure of long and short breaths as an abundance of flesh staked through with a spine. These short embedded lines recall the severely compact stanzas of Graham's early work, so that the expansive/contracted aspect of these newest poems can be said to recapitulate the poet's entire career.

The ostensible topic here is the progress of environmental degradation and the socio-political situations that create and thrive on such entropy, but the actual subject is found in downward-spiraling meditations as the poet enacts in a sort of pas-de-deux the encounter of self with threat, survival doubtful in the outcome. For all their surface brilliance, these are dark texts, suitable for settings in which the violin is banished the ensemble. Particularly fine are the last two poems, Undated Lullaby and No Long Way Round, in which the current of sad culmination rises in a pair of wonderful arias, but shy of resolution. The pleasures of such a world-sorrowing collection are consoling and sustaining, as is Graham's reminder at the very last that there are sounds the planet will always make, even / if there is no one to hear them.

The New York Times has said that "Jorie Graham's poetry is among the most sensuously embodied and imaginative writing we have," and this new collection is a reminder of how startling, original, and deeply relevant her poetry is. In Sea Change, Graham brings us to the once-unimaginable threshold at which civilization as we know it becomes unsustainable. How might the human spirit persist, caught between its abiding love of beauty, its acknowledgment of continuing injury and damage done, and the realization that the existence of a "future" itself may no longer be assured?

There is no better writer to confront such crucial matters than Jorie Graham. In addition to her recognized achievements as a poet of philosophical, aesthetic, and moral concerns, Graham has also been acknowledged as "our most formidable nature poet" (Publishers Weekly). As gorgeous and formally inventive as anything she has written, Sea Change is an essential work speaking out for our planet and the world we have known.

“Jorie Graham’s status as a canonic poet – of the academic breed, with a flair for blending the intellectual and the sensual – is virtually guaranteed.”

“Sea Change is among Graham’s most powerful books.”

“Graham confronts modern wickedness torture and global warming are two themes in lush, sometimes hymnlike verse, A-.”

“[Never] declares that the artistic task of becoming, once begun, continues on.”

“[Never] shows Graham to be a most formidable nature poet.”

“Graham is one of the most important living poets, and her control of her craft is undisputed.”

“Here, the interconnectedness of all life isn’t just a spiritual commonplace, it is grounds for a call to action, and one that Graham – a poet of rare responsiveness to the natural world and a thinker of great ethical responsibility – is uniquely qualified to make.”

“Stunning... Forthright, compassionate and ironic, Graham has crafted poems of lyrical steeliness and cauterizing beauty... Graham writes with breathtaking precision.”

“Jorie Graham’s intricate, sophisticated, and mercurial poems have long been one of the splendors of contemporary American literature. In her latest book, she turns her attention to death, and the result is perhaps her finest collection yet.”

Jorie Graham is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994, which won the Pulitzer Prize. She divides her time between western France and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaches at Harvard University.

Distributor: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: 03-31-2009
Pages: 80
Measurements: 9.25in X 7.375in X 0.21978in X 5.52oz