Only Thing That Matters

The poems in Jensen’s powerful new collection have the speed and instability of linguistic particles traveling outward from a primal collision: light with darkness, oppression with liberty, doubt with certainty, and faith with its impossible Other. Occupying a tense, fugitive space, the poems derive from the ideas and vocabulary of radical poet and novelist Fanny Howe into startling new formulations. Compact and evocative, Jensen’s lyrics are marked by the intensity of their moral commitment to matters of the world and matters of the heart. This is an important work, offering glimpses of what might be possible—if only the love, faith, and compassion that sustain us could themselves be sustained.