Jan Freeman is the Director and Founder of Paris Press. She is the author of four books of poetry, Simon Says, Hyena, Autumn Sequence, and a new collection, Blue Structure. She lives in Ashfield, MA.
Simon Says is just gorgeous. I needed this book! It's wonderful. I
will talk about it. I will give copies to people. Jan Freeman has
written an extraordinary piece of work.--Dorothy Allison
To my mind, Simon Says earns Jan Freeman the right to call herself
one of the great lesbian mythmakers, for she turns her incantatory
voice that which is essentially, although not exclusively, lesbian:
mantras, romantic and decidedly sexual loving, dogs and cats, and
nature. Her work is sometimes expansive, sometimes rhythmic,
sometimes carefully controlled, and always deeply thoughtful.
Ironically, though, the myths in Simon Says arise without even the
utterance of words like lesbian; they reside in the lesbian rather
than insist upon it, a distinction that bespeaks Freeman's
commitment to the poem as a kind of melodic activist movement.
Freeman's reviewers have consistently invoked Stein and Dickinson
to characterize her poetry. True, but too easy. Freeman works too
hard for that; each and every one of her poems is both unique and
uniquely connected to the whole poem that is the book Simon Says.
Freeman's work is held together by the sheer force of her images
rather than by conventional syntax and punctuation, or even by
poetic lineage. These poems need to be read, savored, returned to
time and again (perhaps we obsessive Type A's should, for instance,
return to Freeman's Morning Mantra each day). My suggestion? If
you're a lesbian (oh hell, even if you're not) take Freeman to bed
with you for a few months, read a poem a night, bask in its
complexity and fullness, then spend the final months of your ninth
life loving it again.--The Lesbian Review of Books
Jan Freeman, a daughter of Dickinson and Stein, pursues her
celebrations of vision: solitary, insistent, eccentric, Simon Says
is a peculiarly American and feminine pleasure.--Carole Maso
Simon Says is just gorgeous. I needed this book! It's wonderful. I
will talk about it. I will give copies to people. Jan Freeman has
written an extraordinary piece of work.--Dorothy Allison
If happiness, tenderness, grandiosity, etc. killed the cat, and the
cat likes it better that way, what can we expect to die from and
will we like it better also? And if the brassiere is in the tree,
where are the rest of our things? Will wood save us along with the
memory of scent? Is there a simple cure for comfort? And when will
the angel arrive with convection in her pocket? It's all in the
cadences.--C.D. Wright
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
