Ways We Hold

Poetry. "How do we stay rooted in a world of flux? 'Oh, to keep ourselves / from falling,' Jennifer Arin exclaims, and here is a poet who understands and celebrates the complexity of this impossible wish. Meditating on ancient languages and cityscapes, flow charts and romance, Arin brings an awareness of time's ineluctable passage and poetry's power to stop it, however briefly. Brilliant and resonant, one illumination following another, WAYS WE HOLD delivers on its promises because for Arin, poetry 'is one / small way we hold on.' You will want to hold onto this book, like a lost friend rediscovered."—Elisabeth Frost

"'Nothing comes without a history,' Jennifer Arin reminds us in 'A Portion,' her penultimate poem from this extraordinary collection. Deftly moving between the playful and the lyrical, the serious and the subversive, Arin parses the etymology of phrases from Aztec kings, affectionately refers to time as 'an escape artist anyway,' and fearlessly explores the tragic accident that befell a beloved mentor 'riding / the unplanned / curve.' With sparkling wit and clarity that provokes and seduces her lucky readers, Arin's poetry celebrates the quirky coincidences of our shared humanity, the tenderness that ultimately connects us in the WAYS WE HOLD."—Mary Winegarden

"In WAYS WE HOLD, Jennifer Arin takes the long view—from prehuman history to pumpkins in the state of Delaware, from a Sumerian scribe to her own Russian-Jewish grandparents. Confronting time, death, and chaos, she finds solace in human connection, the 'way[s] we hold on, or try to.' Her thoughtfully-shaped poems, 'planting word rows / across the page,' reveal a lively curiosity, a wry sense of humor and a levelheaded understanding of the human condition."—Chana Bloch