Learning to Jump seeks what sustains us during troubled times. Across a range of spaces, from the ancient Celtic ring forts of the Aran Islands, to an artist’s studio, to an old woman’s dressing table, these poems attend to urgencies too often neglected in the press of everyday obligations. Here are celebrations of making and of things well-made, expressions of gratitude, and acts of preservation, along with meditations on those befores and afters defining peoples’ lives: a child loses a front tooth, a poet takes religious vows, a man dies of a heart attack in the street. To counter the pain of grief, these poems discover–in a hummingbird feeding, in a goat giving birth, in wind heard through dry stone walls–images of beauty and mystery that connect us with nature and each other. Whether focusing on how to cut boards with a handsaw or paint in egg tempura, make chicken soup from scratch or read Ulysses to pieces, this book also honors skills passed on and hard-won habits that enrich ordinary days with meaning. Only by paying such scrupulous attention can we trust our many leaps and the ground we land on.
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Sean Mc Dowell is professor of English at Seattle University. He is the author of Metaphysical Shadows: The Persistence of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Marvell in Contemporary Poetry (2022) and the editor of the John Donne Journal: Studies in the Age of Donne.
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