In her new collection of poems, The Second Reason, Jenny Browne emerges as a poet of tremendous depth and range. The poems here approach both the details of the domestic life and the strangeness of consciousness with equal attention. The work is musical, spiritual, and physical the poet serving as an observant linguistic and sensual guide to all the things that matter love, suffering, and pleasure with her precise and inventive lines. There is a surprising calm in the wild leaps this poetry makes, as if the poet is at home with the unpredictable and intent upon bringing us there with her. --Laura Kasischke
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
What charm and beauty, what observational skill, what originality, what panache we find in Jenny Browne's The Second Reason. These poems are laced with danger, the knives on the wall are lined up by size she warns in one poem, and humor, put your hand in the air if you've heard / the one about the hokey pokey man, she directs in another. Browne deftly moves from prose poem to found poem to haunting and terse lyrics grounded in a strange landscape: poems about children and childbirth with the backdrop of terrorism and 9/11. As she writes with characteristic off-center understatement: In my country orange means/everyone should be a little more/ afraid than usual. This is a volume that should not be missed. --Beth Ann Fennelly
Jenny Browne jump-cuts, seamlessly, between the heart and the mind as she addresses issues of the human condition. although the situations are familiar reverie of youth, beginnings of a family as an adult, love between a husband and wife the voice is singular, strident and illuminating. When she asks, Do you want the short or the long version? the answer is always both, if it s in her voice. This work is important not only because it teaches courage in our daily lives, but it also teaches a special way of being afraid./ This is the end of every day/ when we peer from the bushes/ into the glowing kitchen of our own life. . . . --A. Van Jordan
The Second Reason is wild and beautiful and surprising. In this poet's hands the seemingly mundane is transformed into the nearly sacred, the elemental reveals its inner mysteries, and scraps of overheard language dissolve into a song. Jenny Browne is a poet of alchemy, and these poems embody wonder. --Nick Flynn
Jenny Browne jump-cuts, seamlessly, between the heart and the mind as she addresses issues of the human condition. although the situations are familiar reverie of youth, beginnings of a family as an adult, love between a husband and wife the voice is singular, strident and illuminating. When she asks, Do you want the short or the long version? the answer is always both, if it s in her voice. This work is important not only because it teaches courage in our daily lives, but it also teaches a special way of being afraid./ This is the end of every day/ when we peer from the bushes/ into the glowing kitchen of our own life. . . . --A. Van Jordan
The Second Reason is wild and beautiful and surprising. In this poet's hands the seemingly mundane is transformed into the nearly sacred, the elemental reveals its inner mysteries, and scraps of overheard language dissolve into a song. Jenny Browne is a poet of alchemy, and these poems embody wonder. --Nick Flynn
About the Author
Jenny Browne is the author of At Once, (University of Tampa press, 2003) and the chapbook, Glass (Pecan Grove, 2000). She is also editor of Provide and Protect, Writers on Planned and Unplanned Parenthood (Wings Press, 2005). A former James Michener Fellow at the University of Texas in Austin, she has received awards from the Writer's League of Texas and the San Antonio Artist Foundation and her work has been featured by Texas Public Radio, the Artpace Foundation for Contemporary Art, and the Dallas Museum of Art. She lives in downtown San Antonio with her family and teaches creative writing at Trinity University.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,
This review is from: The Second Reason (Hardcover)
I had the incredible opportunity to listen to a live reading of Jenny Browne's at Brigham Young University this fall. It was there that I was able to fall in love with her poetry and her uncanny ability to turn any ordinary item, street or person into something worth noticing. She ties together the most unlikely topics like pregnancy and war (a personal favorite of mine). Someone who hates snow will still love her poem on skiing and other things that you wouldn't suppose warrant any attention from anybody will capture your fascination when described by the clear, refreshing voice of Jenny Browne. Hearing her read her work was a wonderful opportunity to really get a better idea of what she and her poetry are really like.
Jenny Browne's poetry is like a drink of cool water. Her voice is concise and crisp, her descriptions vivid and clear and her perspective is incredibly refreshing. The way she writes makes the mundane beautiful and in this book, "The Second Reason" the reader gets a glimpse into her very essence. Browne's poetry is personal. She fills it with her very soul and that is what makes her everyday observations so incredible. She is honest in her poetry in the most precise way. I can only hope to one day be half as brilliant and sparkling as Jenny Browne is with her way of expressing her innermost thoughts and feelings, put together in such few words but with such a clear meaning. A tall drink of water is how I'd describe Jenny Browne's latest venture in poetry and it comes highly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Necessary reading for aspiring lyric poets,
By
This review is from: The Second Reason (Hardcover)
Jenny Browne's poetry reads in dark riddles and puzzles, and this is a high-speaking compliment. I enjoyed the effort I took to discover each poem. Her poems lack adverbs, which is what she teaches to her followers, but they are dripping with complete images of precision and stagger- "And I have watched the spaces between/the scales of a garden snake expand/as animal moves through animal./I have squinted at the sky and seen the sun move through a pinhole/ and birth is still not like/anything."
She came as a guest author at BYU; I had an astounding time connecting the Jenny in-person to the Jenny in-writing. She possessed exuberant friendliness full of quick nods and smiles, I was sure she could burn more of that, and she spoke with wild, moveable excitement about almost everything that came out of her mouth. How can someone like this focus on the world and write things with care and stark such as "Two flies buzz the carcass of a black bean repeatedly" and "dishwater sky." Lesson I learned is do not judge an author by their spontaneity. She has a brilliant mind and intense way of repeating the dull world around her. The collection generally read with a beautiful overcast; do not expect to be brought up to brighter heights and a new ability to reach your goals. You will come across themes of children, pregnancy, war, humor (on the grayer side), and mistakes. I definitely recommend her poetry to aspiring lyric poets. We can learn a ton from reading and experiencing her examples of the "invisible connective tissue" between the black words. White words will begin to appear and you will feel euphoric sensations when you discover a meaning.
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