Jeanne Murray Walker was born in a village of 900
people in northern Minnesota. She was first published by The
Atlantic Monthly at age 19. Today she’s the prize-winning
author of nine books of poetry. Jeanne serves as a Mentor in the
Seattle Pacific University low residency MFA Program and travels
widely to give readings and workshops.
“Jeanne Murray Walker’s wondrous new collection attests to the
enduring value and relevance of poetic form. This is poetry we need
today, this is poetry for always. Here are poems where ear and
heart are wed, poems that leap, because form—in this case the
sonnet—is both nature’s mountain and a human fence: to be
climbed—in hardiness and awe—and to lean pensively against. Yet,
these quoted lines with the image they evoke sum up my thoughts
this hour: the poet falling into the sonnet’s arms, the sonnet
falling into her own, and both begetting new, journeying words:
discovery, discernment, delight. Take heed; read deeply, be
blessed.” —Sofia Starnes, past poet laureate of Virginia and author
of The Consequence of Moonlight
“These compelling poems teach us to see, as if sight were new to
us, and to hear the Creator’s answers to our complaints in the
particular beauties of this world. Murray Walker proves that the
sonnet form can provoke new levels of meaning, enrich language
usually unheard, and uncover images invisible to the casual viewer.
We find a universe of colors we have never imagined and questions
we have hardly dared to ask. With this book she reinvigorates the
sacramental.” —Jill Baumgaertner, poetry editor for The Christian
Century
“There is a rock-solid belief in the mystery of beauty in these
poems, and in the perpetual creation of a God always creating; and
there is an equally foundational belief in form and how the sonnet
form itself can give rise to a seemingly infinite variety of
permutations. These poems are themselves pilgrims that find
their path by trusting in their exuberant runs of diction—pizzazz
of memory; the wigged-out chug of a bass viol; the dimmer switch of
sun dialed down—in the freshness of their images (“a white poodle
strolling like a plume of breath in winter”) and in their endlessly
inventive structures, use of dropped lines, and fresh rhymes. And,
of course, behind all these poems is Jeanne Murray Walker the
pilgrim—our witty, wise, honest, faithful fellow traveler on the
path that can be found only in its walking.” —Robert Cording, poet
and author of Only So Far: Poems
“Form befuddles some poets; to others it grants poise and piquancy
and perspective. Jeanne Murray Walker is a spirit of the latter
kind, and in these sonnets she has cobbled a diamond light into her
work. Let her help you find your path by walking her most welcome
lines, wrought with love to make a way for us to follow.” —Paul J.
Willis, author of Deer at Twilight: Poems from the North Cascades
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