The Book of Jane

by Jennifer Habel

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Pub Date Apr 01 2020 | Archive Date Apr 01 2020

University of Iowa Press | University Of Iowa Press

Poetry & Verse

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Description

The Book of Jane is a perceptive, tenacious investigation of gender, authority, and art. Jennifer Habel draws a contrast between the archetype of the lone male genius and the circumscribed, relational lives of women. Habel points repeatedly to discrepancies of scale: the grand arenas of Balanchine, Einstein, and Matisse are set against the female miniature—the dancer’s stockings, the anonymous needlepoint, the diary entry, the inventory of a purse.

The Book of Jane is a perceptive, tenacious investigation of gender, authority, and art. Jennifer Habel draws a contrast between the archetype of the lone male genius and the circumscribed...

A Note From the Publisher

Excerpt:
From “A Guide to Jane’s Office”:

That space heater is probably dangerous.

That’s from the gift shop at the Matisse Chapel.

This coaster hides a water ring.

Here is the bulletin board, empty as a well.

That’s trash.

That’s recycling.

This stuff needs to be shredded.

That under there is lost.

This is not quite what she expected, though it’s possible she never expected.

That sheet of paper says wine
compost
Dr. Wu?

Here is the thing about female sculptors in the Weimar Republic: their work was
celebrated only if it was small.

There is the squirrel staring in from the box gutter.

There is a long thin crack in the wall.

That’s nothing.

That’s private.

That’s due.

Excerpt:
From “A Guide to Jane’s Office”:

That space heater is probably dangerous.

That’s from the gift shop at the Matisse Chapel.

This coaster hides a water ring.

Here is the...

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A Note From the Publisher

Excerpt:
From “A Guide to Jane’s Office”:

That space heater is probably dangerous.

That’s from the gift shop at the Matisse Chapel.

This coaster hides a water ring.

Here is the bulletin board, empty as a well.

That’s trash.

That’s recycling.

This stuff needs to be shredded.

That under there is lost.

This is not quite what she expected, though it’s possible she never expected.

That sheet of paper says wine
compost
Dr. Wu?

Here is the thing about female sculptors in the Weimar Republic: their work was
celebrated only if it was small.

There is the squirrel staring in from the box gutter.

There is a long thin crack in the wall.

That’s nothing.

That’s private.

That’s due.

Advance Praise

“The Book of Jane blooms as a book of many books—those nipped at the bud, those impossible, unwritten works by women lost to history. This work is an aesthetic joy and a feminist breakthrough, and Jennifer Habel’s is a voice we need, a voice we’ve waited a long time to hear.”—Brenda Shaughnessy, judge, Iowa Poetry Prize

“Jennifer Habel’s Book of Jane is quietly spectacular, and here, much as the poet says in the long final poem ‘big ambitions require small frames.’ These poems are formally inventive and various. Habel’s readers will marvel at the subtle, remarkable achievement of these poems, ‘Look at that.’”—Rebecca Lindenberg, author, Love, An Index

“Jennifer Habel’s The Book of Jane is a formally inventive romp of a book that wrestles with and away from John Berger’s Ways of Seeing—‘men act and women appear.’ Female creativity and agency are central to Habel’s imaginative flourishes, which are considerable, brilliant, and always illuminating.”—Denise Duhamel, author, Scald