Karen Luke Jackson

The View Ever Changing Karen Luke Jackson

I spring from the same ground that Karen Luke Jackson writes about-the haunting, tension-filled, story-rich forests and fields of the South, where darkness is always rising to meet nostalgia. Here in these soulful poems (to earthworms, to the moon, to ancestors), Jackson looks back through layers, coming to terms with the past and with the present: "a flock of kin I fled / and to whom I have returned." The book is a reckoning, a force, a love song, an embrace of the Great Mother, a homecoming.

-Janisse Ray, Author of A House of Branches: Poems

Karen Luke Jackson's new collection, rich in detail, imagery, and complex feeling, take us on a journey that begins with a series of close-up views of a southern childhood and then progresses, through a widening lens, into adulthood's defining experiences. Along the way, the view-both external and internal-is darkened by loss, social inequities, and the commodification of nature. But it is brightened by the love, perseverance, and spiritual strength summoned by family bonds and by nature's renewing force. Throughout the journey, the constant is Jackson's steady vision and clear voice-assured, hospitable, and hopeful.

-Eric Nelson, Author of Some Wonder

"Wiregrass Georgia was holy land," Karen Luke Jackson writes in her expansive collection, but these poems are not naïve homage. Familiar roadsides where the poet "foraged plums and blackberries" are cleared by chain gangs, and favorite stores are lost to the attrition of time and profit. In vivid poems that are both tribute and challenge, Jackson recalls caring for aging parents, honors powerful women who influenced her, and embraces life's keen ambivalences. As the title affirms, The View Ever Changing traces a poet's awakening, transition, reconciliation, and appreciation in a lovely and honest evocation of a beloved place and people.

-Kenneth Chamlee, Author of Absolute Faith