The Only Thing That Matters

"Like the medieval women writers who included passages from other women authors in their own works, Jensen’s homage results in poetry as a form of hospitality, a way of being truly open to the world. ‘Ordinary speech seems like a sin to me,’ writes Jensen, so she gifts us with this miraculous celebration of all that is both spiritual and worldly."

—Tina Darragh, author of A(Gain)2St the Odds

In a time when the ordinary and the predictable prevail in poetry, this collection by Kim Jensen gives us a truly original poetry of witness. In its very genesis, Jensen’s work articulates an engagement that is playful and innovative, yet willful and defiant. There are quickenings in here, walk-alongs within walk-alongs. Finely crafted and marvelously inventive, these poems sing and hiss and howl. They enliven and push and love.

—Naomi Ayala, author of Wild Animals on the Moon and This Side of Early