"It's a beautiful, seamless book that never stops gathering force one in which the strength, brilliance, and movement of the phrase is the ultimate ecosystem." Cole Swensen
"I feel utterly transported in Mead's presence, surrounded by and imbued in her language." Nick Flynn
A striking combination of the spiritual and political, Money Money Money | Water Water Water explores the enormous impact that widespread environmental destruction makes on our way of life. With prophetic disquietude, Jane Mead's inquiry into the interconnectedness of our choices exposes our existence as paradox. Her poems beseech us to consider the consequences of our collective actions on the planet.
Cove, *****
I came out of the dark hills
and the dark hills own me. I have
no patience for the sticky-minded
stratums. The concern of the comfortable
for the comfortable makes me sick. Meanwhile,
the red leaves spin on their axes of air,
different leaves now, different axes,
same big death. And wouldn't we love
to shrug now and just say sorry?
Apparently not say sorry.
Let's not talk about it.
I wish I lived in an opium cloud.
Jane Mead is the author of three previous collections of poetry, most recently The Usable Field, also from Alice James Books. She is the recipient of grants and awards from the Whiting, Guggenheim, and Lannan foundations. For many years poet-in-residence at Wake Forest University, she now farms in northern California and teaches in the Drew University low-residency MFA program in poetry and poetry in translation.