Unsymmetrical Body by Jennifer R. Edwards

 

The poems of Jennifer R. Edwards often draw on memory, yet their freshness on the page strikes me over and over again. She takes the raw materials of past and present family life and changes them over time into the rich and fertile ground of true art, surprising us with the sharpness of her observations, and the much-needed humility of always trying to be “a heart beating the world.”

–James Crews, Poet and Editor of The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection & Joy

 

Jennifer R. Edwards is a poet that writes from the deep dissonances of the heart and mind trusting the wisdom of the poet’s impulse. Relationships and objects undergo a defamiliarization that bear truths of personal connection: a father’s love remembered in grapefruit, a grandmother and her love of professional wrestling, Sun-In and a parent’s planning the life of a daughter–no connection is unexplored. Edwards is a poet who shows us the deliberate and compassionate treatment of her various subjects and moves me with the way these poems of various forms fold memory after association into a heart’s awakening. Unsymmetrical Body is a collection of colossal stamina—when you read, you will certainly learn how the tender survive the harsh truths of this world in grace.

–Rajiv Mohabir,  Author of CUTLISH (Four Way Books 2021), ANTIMAN (Winner of the 2021 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing) and translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (Kaya Press 2019)

 

Jen Edwards, in her book Unsymmetrical Body, writes using a favorite theme of mine: Making the Private Public. In these poems we find her son blowing bubbles during his bath, an Easter without the kids, dealing with an ex-husband, her dad eating a grapefruit, and so much more. These are poems filled with human dignity and human failings from a promising young New Hampshire poet we are sure to hear more about in the future.
–Jimmy Pappas, Rattle chapbook prize winning author of Falling off the Empire State Building.

 

“Pink thumbs of strawberries”, “toes as tiny as pebbles”, “the sexy suck of cash in slots”— with words like these poet Jennifer Edwards entices readers into her new poetry collection, Unsymmetrical Body: Poems.

 

With such language and strong images, she eases us into the many sides of being human. We feel the push-pull of relationships, heartbreak of divorce, befuddlement over how others think, the wisdom of learning to open… and more.

 

What I find most compelling about the collection is how understated, yet moving, the poems are. Jen’s precise word choice and well-crafted lines always leave the reader with inklings
that something else is going on within the poem—“Mother was always reaching”, “held her daughter up as one might clutch shiny fruit despite starvation”, “all living borrowed on family time”.

 

Words, indirectly stated, tease the reader into re-reading lines to suck marrow out of their meaning. Be prepared to be lured in.
–Barbara Bald is a retired teacher and educational consultant. She worked at the Frost Place in Franconia NH and served on the Board of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Her poems have been published in many anthologies and journals. She has two poetry collections: Drive-Through Window and Other Voices/Other Lives and a chapbook Running on Empty.