Crosswalks by Jan Seagrave

In her new book Crosswalks, the poet Jan Seagrave invites us to join her on a journey around her suburban neighborhood. One poem begins, “”My soul began to suffocate / then burst through claustrophobia.” She leaves “the city of abandoned ghosts” to allow her to observe, and to document “native color on a human scale.” Her journey has been a full one, giving us this collection of poems, each one rich with detail and emotions inspired by elements of her morning walks around her neighborhood.

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Within the scope of this book, the author incorporates timely reflections on the concerns that she shares with us— fears for our planet as well as for our families, and for all of us as individuals. Loss is always present in our lives, and these poems accept that as part of our literal and spiritual neighborhood. Seagrave does not flinch in the face of the difficulties we all face; in “Currents,” for example, she moves easily from high voltage wires to the San Andreas Fault, then to questions: “blackened  pole…where are you grounded?”…”When will love / conduct power?” She responds indirectly in another poem: “All would be flattened into the visible. / We could be beasts again / content without comparisons /…until somewhere…a rosebud blooms….”

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This is a book you will want to read and reread, moving from description to the reflections of a noted poet, and perhaps giving  you the impetus to pay attention with a notebook as you walk your own neighborhood.

–Fran Claggett-Holland, poet, teacher, educational consultant

Jan Seagrave‘s debut chapbook, Crosswalks, is observant and considered, full of poems that peer into various catastrophes, such as COVID and climate, and all the while argue for clear-eyed joy. As Seagrave writes, “…fires have already begun in Montana / but we keep on jumping on the trampoline in the backyard / by the redwood, under the oak / as long as they stand / for as long as we can.” These poems leap and sing; they beg us to slow down and move forward, and hold us close amidst inevitable change.