Our Finale Feature: JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM
Jill Alexander Essbaum is the author of several books of poetry, including, Bakeless Prize Winner, Heaven, Oh Forbidden, Harlot, and her latest opus, Necropolis. She has been published in, among others, Poetry, Black Warrior Review, The National Poetry Review, The Best American Erotic Poems, Coconut and No Tell Motel. She has taught at Concordia University in Austin, and at the University of Texas (where I and a few other fellow members of RIOT Ink are proud to call ourselves her students).
I first became a fan of Jill’s at ACC when, my professor at the time, Lyman Grant, gave me a copy of Oh Forbidden. I had spoken to him about the trouble I had expressing the erotic in poetry, of heeling that fine tightrope line between virtue and vice, that is–the sublimity of sex. Up until then, all I encountered seemed either too abstract or austere (think: blooming peonies, stiff reeds) or too Harlequin and gaudy (think: things that ‘throb’ or ‘moisten’).
The answer I received that semester in Jill’s book was the beautiful and complicated music of desire, wherein the notes of metaphor, imagery and rhyme shimmer. Its sonnets are so lush, so unabashed and yet, even for all their ecstatic gush, elegantly and deftly composed. It wasn’t long afterwards that I sought out all her works. She is tremendously witty and clever, and there is nary a pun she cannot polish to sparkling, nor a line of hers that does not astonish an ear in its aural acrobatics. Since that serendipitous semester, I have met Jill and am honored and blessed to call her my friend. She is a writer of true grace.
Do read this interview with her by editor and poet Reb Livingston, and this feature on Poets.org. You can also read her poetry here and here. Do come out and join RIOT Ink in celebrating a summer of amazing poetry with this amazing poet.
All you need to know:
