J. L. Jacobs

Streets As Elsewhere J. L. Jacobs

Streets As Elsewhere is where everything and everyone is absorbed by the place, where "This empty house listens to its landscape"; "Dust as it is seen is swept inwards/ as a dream at noon." The inhabitants are as discarnate as those in Pedro Paramo, "...a woman walking up the dusty road. / Straight uphill." "...wild bees in a memory of women stretching fabric." The sound tunes to its surrounds-crows in the afternoon, April thunder, crickets-and to smells of overcoats in rain, cognac and persimmons. A subtle disquietude attaches to a sense of belonging; a strange magnetism  alleviates an equally potent sense of estrangement. So much braided hair, so much so much dust, so much rain. J. L. Jacobs has conjured a language for her distinctive world. The poems linger and beckon. The silvered reader enters from behind the mirror. The book tenders a strange exaltation. -C. D. Wright