Poems
The Truant Lover, winner of the 2004 Nightboat Poetry Prize selected by Jean Valentine is available through your local bookseller and Nightboat Books
“Juliet Patterson's poems are entirely themselves, they use time and the eye and the tongue--all the body, as thought and insight, inside and outside of history.” —Jean Valentine
Poems from The Truant Lover
Opening of a Burr: Audio / Text
Palinode: Audio / Text
To A Reader: Audio / Text
Half December: Audio / Text
Audio requires Real Audio. Text requires Acrobat Reader.
Bill Stobb features The Truant Lover on his show Hard to Say on MiPOradio. You can listen here.
You can also listen to a recording here of Juliet's reading at Prairie Lights, July 2006
Reviews
Publisher’s Weekly: “In the 31 poems of Patterson’s debut (also the first full-length collection from Nightboat Books), stories create the experiences they narrate: “As in the parable, the truant lover / arrived.” Speaking in a clinical, yet vulnerable voice, Patterson seeks to delineate “I” from “eye“: “I in the form of my own urging, eye / in its movement follows the body’s future / path.” Patterson’s style foregrounds the visual, and the book is rife with references to visual artists. Lines are also lifted from poets including Lorine Niedecker, Brenda Shaughnessy and Donald Revell, emphasizing the connection of the senses and the arts. Patterson’s search for self-knowledge often threatens violence as well: “A book is a huge cemetery.” Yet this same force also preserves life: “Members breeding / on poisonous members // store the poisons / for their own defense.” Patterson has crafted a far reaching first book that blends self-interrogation with metaphysical inquiry. Both Patterson and Nightboat show great promise.”
Square One’s Dear Reader: “Juliet Patterson’s first collection of poems is a pastiche of American voices, a well of poems with passages that hint and nod at past poets while remaining wholly their own. Patterson is a true rock star on the page, with poems ranging from broken syntax to the sparsest phrase to the Queen’s English. This is a highly philosophical book, one that does not flinch as it goes to the heart of who we are.”
Painted Bride Quarterly: “These poems are driven by a voice that I think would define the world clearly and unequivocally if it were possible. Instead, the poet is forced (like most of us) to offer up images, the correspondences that connect them, and the humanity behind what life leaves for us.”
Miscellany
Kate Greenstreet interviews Juliet for her first book series on her ceaselessly interesting blog, kicking wind. Read the text here.
Shannon Gibney interviews Juliet for her monthly segment “Thinking Souls” at mnartists.org. Click here to read the text.
Interview with Juliet Patterson and Gabrielle Civil:
On The Truant Lover
