Life in Captivity by Jennifer A. McGowan

$14.00

Bright-eyed and unblinking, Jennifer A. McGowan engages with stories, events and situations that embody lasting truths about human passion and illusion, suffering and endurance – the adventures of Odysseus, the appalling English witch-hunts, the condition of loneliness. At the heart of this shapely, significant chapbook is the tension between the divine spark and complete and utter earthiness. In one of several memorable dramatic monologues, the concubine of a divine, but pimply, dead pharaoh stares at his ‘solar barque’ and

…can’t help wondering
if when they weigh my soul
he’ll be clear-skinned and waiting,
and if he still snores.

The female viewpoint; gritty thought; wit; striking candour – an unafraid recognition of life’s richness and desolation; memorable detail; all these are underpinned by Jennifer A. McGowan‘s graceful, subtle, quite lovely way with language.

— Kevin Crossley-Holland

The bite is here, the sass, the taut lines raptly tangled in their music, the slightly arch yet scampering voice caught between rage and ecstasy: so I name Jennifer A. McGowan a true descendent of the tribe of Plath. Well, Plathish–for these lyrics, dramatic monologues and fairytales are bedecked with wit, irony, bittersweet folly and dictional-shifts jazzy enough to make a reader dance–these last all McGowan’s own.

—Gray Jacobik

I love Jennifer A. McGowan‘s new poems. Nostalgia runs through them, a profound nostalgia that has marked her for ever. It also has marked us, her readers. It makes us think about the inevitability of life. She is precise, observant and steeped in mythology. She herself is a living myth.

— Claribel Alegría

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Life in Captivity

by Jennifer A. McGowan

$14, paper

Jennifer A. McGowan, one of Oxford’s Back Room Poets, graduated from Princeton with honours, and from the University of Wales for her M.A. and Ph.D. Despite being certified as disabled at age 16 with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, she went on to become a semi-professional mime and performed in five countries. She has published poetry and prose in various magazines and anthologies, and has both written and recorded songs on several (small, but perfectly formed) labels. She loves teaching and has taught both under- and postgraduates at several universities. She is a British citizen.

In addition to the Back Room Poets, she is also one of the Jericho Poets, the Oxford Stanza poets, and the White Horse Poets. She is also a member of the Poetry Society and the Second Light Network.

Jennifer’s poetry ranges from the personal to the mythological, but always remains accessible. Here is what people are saying about her:

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