Distillations and Siphonings

Forty years after the appearance of his first book, Greene returns with his 30th title. In verse of elegant simplicity he chronicles the joys and challenges of rural life, but his voice and his themes are more personal and more urgently engaged with the times than ever.

"Jonathan is at the peak of his art in Distillations and Siphonings. His poems have never been more alert, more spare, more startling in unexpected connections and quirky observations. In many poems he is witness to the infinitesimal, the most fleeting event or thought. Often poems turn on subtle or sly wit. While we can read them separately as epigrams, they accumulate like carefully wrought marginalia on the book of life, troubled by the woes and cruelties of our time, warmed by affection and cherished friendships. The poems delight us as the meditations of an examined life, patient, wise, gifted, artful."
Robert Morgan (from Foreword)