The Two of them Might Outlast Me
by Jeanine Walker
The death of a horse in the opening poem, a storm of violence throughout worth chasing, and one of love, loss, suicide, divorce, family, excursions both imaginary and all too real, remembered and created on the page, the poems in Jeanine Walker’s first book are intensely personal, the poems of someone who has been around, and, at the same time, poems that achieve the visionary impersonality marking truly transcendent poetry. This generous collection contains poem after poem that its reader will want to return to time and again.
Reviews
”Jeanine Walker's poems pluck images from a past to tumble them like stones. It is in the poem's turning that we enter new intricacies of human interaction and loss. Her language, at once quotidian and allegorial, describes a landscape inlaid with memory as well as potential. In this dazzling and haunting collection, a history of trauma and grief reminds us where we have been, but also where we can turn. "A world on fire burns as ferociously as a tiger's snarl./ I'm sorry. It is the best I can come up with. I am heat now; I am fire./ The world, a fist of fire, burns within me and I speak./ The world is a fist of fire: our dictionaries reflect this." These poems balance clarity with enigma in ways that are wholly Walker's own genius. This is a poet to follow. These are poems to live with.”
-Claudia Rankine
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