Years, Months, and Days

Description

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST POETRY BOOK OF 2018A transfiguration of Mennonite hymns into heartbreaking lyric poems,Years, Months, and Daysis a moving meditation on the possibility of translation. Bridging secular spirituality and holy reverence with the commonalities of life, death, love, and hope, Jernigan explores the connection between hymn and poem, recalling the spare beauty of Marilynne Robinsons novels or the poems of Jan Zwicky and Robert Bringhurst. The sparse and tender phrasing ofYears, Months, and Daysis an offering of words to music, made in the spirit of a shared lovefor life, for a particular landscape and its rhythmsthat animates poem and prayer alike.Praise forYears, Months, and DaysElegant, spare, and quiet, and, like the hymns these poems transfigure, like a prayer set to music.Casey Plett, author ofOn CommunityandLittle Fish[Years, Months, and Days] is carried by Jernigans obvious respect for her sponsoring material and by her superb ear.New York TimesExquisite . . . deeply resonant . . . . Theres often a metaphysical cast to her forthright observations, which makes them both evocative and poignant.Toronto StarAmanda Jernigans small and beautiful book should be on your bedside table even if it is as heaped as mine. Just 4 by 5 and fewer than 70 pages, the book consists of untitled, spare, and simply-worded poems which evoke the cycles of life, the seasons, and human longing for meaning and connection. The poems expand in your head, opening your mind to matters beyond the day-to-day.Arc Poetry MagazineThe poems are tiny, seeds only, bare of flourish, each containing the germ of an idea so large the mind can hardly hold it . . . . If you seek to tune those numbered days of yours to what is most frightfully vital, you might carry this book in your satchel awhile. Its tiny enough to conceal in a large pocket, but it thunders, and its seeds carry fields.ImageSingular . . . stirring . . . invites pauses and contemplation. It is [Jernigans] keen sense of what is essential that guides . . . these meditations.Hamilton Review of BooksAn elegant little book . . . Jernigan crafts pithy yet piercing poems that echo in the mind.Canadian LiteratureVespers. Devotional. Breathtakingly sparse. Elegant. Wondrous. Moving. Rare.Jeff Kirby, knife | fork | book