The Surface of Last Scattering (The X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize) [Paperback]

Gray Jacobik (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

11:00 A.m.
Apples
Armageddon
The Astronomer's Wife
The Beloved's Body
Bittersweet
Bones
Death Is A Material Flower
Demeter In November
The Disclosure
Disorders
Emily
The End
Etymology
Every Man Whose Soul Is Not A Clod Hath Visions
Faith
Genius
The Girls Of Cork City
The Ideal
In Brightest Light
Irises
Irish Holiday
Leaving Lovers
A Little Charade
Making Love: 1. The Widening
Making Love: 2. The Entering
Making Love: 3. The Removal
Making Love: 4. The Revelation
Memory And Longing
The Nap
Night Work
Perspective
Pregnant
Privacy
Psyche
Ramelli's Reading Wheel
Silver Lotus, Golden Lotus
Sleeping In
Snowmelt
The Speaker
The Sphere
Stardust
Two Friends Of Mine
Under The Sign Of Walt Whitman
Vermeer
A West Cork Suite
West Of Tucson
Whole Speech
The Wind
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Texas Review Press; 1 edition (April 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881515206
• ISBN-13: 978-1881515203
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,916,254 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gray Jacobik is an American poet whose poems and essays have appeared in literary magazines and journals and in several anthologies. She is the winner of The Yeats Prize, the Emily Dickinson Prize, and in 2009 "The Skeptic's Prayer" received the 2009 Third Coast Poetry Prize. The Double Task received The Juniper Prize and was nominated for The James Laughlin Award and The Poet's Prize. The Surface of Last Scattering was selected by X. J. Kennedy as the winner of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. Brave Disguises received the AWP Poetry Series Award. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize more than twenty times, most recently in 2009 (for "Oysters" Southern Women's Review). In 2002 she was the Robert Frost Poet-in-Residence at The Frost Place. For several years, as a professor of literature, she taught at Eastern Connecticut State University, and from 2003 until 2009, she taught on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program. Little Boy Blue: A Memoir in Verse is her most recent collection, published by CavanKerryPress. For more details and to read and hear poems, please visit Gray's website at www.grayjacobik.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry, February 10, 2000

By 

Justin Koelsch (Amston, Connecticut.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Surface of Last Scattering (The X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize) (Paperback)

I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Jacobik at The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in Ct. this past summer. Her voice is powerful, her gifts great. Perspective, my favorite poem from this latest collection is my favorite, transporting me to a hill side, watching her husband journey home to her. Jacobik's use of language moves me, creating dreamy imagery that lifts me to the places where she dwells, and if only for a moment , I stand side by side with her watching the world unfold through her eyes. Not the stuff of rainy days, this collection begs to be read again and again.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars winner of the x.j. kennedy poetry prize, June 19, 2003

By 

[e-mail] "[e-mail]" (Beaumont, tx USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Surface of Last Scattering (The X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize) (Paperback)

I'm not sure how this book won the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. The collection isn't uneven, I found most of the poetry to be bad or dull. There are two great poems in there: her prose poem "The Wind" and "West of Tucson" and I'd also say "Irish Holiday" is worth noting. This book is nothing like her latest, Brave Disguises, which is a phenomenal book. But I can see in this collection how she is developing the voice and poetics she now has. Be forewarned, there is little narritive or even much linear structure within this volume. The Surface of Last Scattering seems to be saying something, the problem is, I'm not quite sure what. Check out those three poems I mentioned, then just skip to Brave Disguises--you won't be disappointed there.