Now, Now

Back Cover

poetry “Nothing gets by the poet Jennifer Maier, whether it be the oddness of celebrating the New Year instead of mourning the old or the way the smell of frying bacon can evoke a Depression era drama between neighbors or how what she calls ‘a life of ordinary good’ can be lost in an instant. Her poems capture the essence of their subjects with the wit and style of a lucid and profoundly merciful intelligence. She sees again and again into the flawed heart of things, even into her own heart, and offers an understanding that is like forgiveness.”—Mark Jarman “What a rare joy it is to linger in the lucid, transcendent worlds of Jennifer Maier’s poems. In taut, precise language and lapidary images, Now, Now explores myriad pathways of connection, the ways desire, longing, and imaginative possibility brush up against the everyday, revealing a keen, fiercely compassionate intelligence—a sensibility so finely attuned and so clearly in love with the world that you would follow it almost anywhere.”—Rick Hilles “Now, Now is a collection dwelling in possibility, where memory works forward as well as backward, turning time into a ‘collapsible cup,’ and where clarity of impassioned thought coexists in uncanny relation to ambiguity of meaning. With remarkable grace and wit, Maier brings to light the seen and the unseen, and with a coolness of tone possessing unmistakable authority, she transforms glimpses and impressions into images and metaphors that carry us into the heart of things.”—Phillis Levin Jennifer Maier is professor of English at Seattle Pacific University and associate editor of the arts quarterly IMAGE. Her other poetry collection Dark Alphabet won the Crab Orchard Review Series in Poetry First Book Award and was named one of the Ten Remarkable Books of 2006 by the Academy of American Poets. Maier’s poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Poetry, New Letters, Smartish Pace, and American Poetry Review, and has been featured on Public Radio International’s The Writer’s Almanac. Photo by Keith Brofsky P I T T P O E T R Y S E R I E S University of Pittsburgh Press www.upress.pitt.edu Cover art: Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Gas, 1940. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund, The Museum of Modern Art. Digital image© The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY Cover design: Ann Walston ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-6263-2 ISBN 10: 0-8229-6263-2 $15.95 9 7 8 0 8 2 2 9 6 2 6 3 2 ...