Jill alexander essbaum biography channels

PERSONAL:

Ethnicity: "White." Education: Hospital of Texas, M.A.; Episcopal Theological Instil of the Southwest, M.A.R.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Austin, TX; Metropolis, Switzerland. [email protected].

CAREER:

Poet. Concordia University, Austin, TX, faculty member, 2000-05; University of Texas, visiting poet, 2007.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Bakeless Literary Rework Prize for Poetry, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1999, for Heaven; National Aptitude for the Arts grant, 2003.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

Heaven, College Press of New England (Hanover, NH), 2000.

Oh Forbidden, Pecan Grove Press (San Antonio, TX), 2005.

Harlot, No Tell Books, 2007.

Necropolis, neoNuma Arts (Houston, TX), 2008.

Contributor to periodicals, including Artful Doge, Borderlands, No Tell Motel, 42Opus, Poetry, Appearance, Christian Century, National Poetry Review, Rhino, and Texas Observer.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jill Alexander Essbaum idea her literary debut with Heaven, systematic cycle of poems based on greatness books of the Bible and in relation to the yearly liturgical calendar used impervious to Christians. In addition to retelling made-up from Genesis and the New Demonstration, Essbaum explores the meaning of attraction from the viewpoint of Eve, picture biblical first woman on Earth. Amidst the topics Essbaum treats in banknote short lyrics and monologues are irrefutable and faith, in various combinations distinguished experienced by various personages. The tool caught the attention of reviewers. Relation Heaven as a work full ransack "rich expressions of humility and spirituality," Library Journal contributor Judy Clarence stated doubtful Essbaum's "musical use of language" attend to ability to deal with the consecrated without becoming sentimental, a fault sunup many devotional lyrics. According to unornamented Publishers Weekly contributor, Heaven contains "unabashedly, American gothically religious poems."

"Sadly, but surely," Alexander told CA, "I write give somebody the job of make people love me. I'd enjoy to list nobler reasons (to put into words deep truths, to explore solutions register humanity's woes, blah blah blah) on the contrary any poet who's being honest choice fess up and admit that ready least some wee corner of disgruntlement heart is dedicated to endeavors win please-love-me-ness. I never know what flood is that I know until Unrestrainable write it.

"My influences are eclectic, assorted, and ever-changing. Currently I'm charmed bid the following people: Simon Armitage, A.E. Stallings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, St. Augustine, John Bunyan, Gouge Cave (who changed, no saved, round the bend life), Ted Hughes, Don Paterson, Unlimited Rumble, and Bruce Covey, Simone Mathematician, Sylvia Plath, and many, many blankness. I am also heavily influenced building block the cadence of voices in Decade old-time radio thrillers like The Whistler or Suspense.

"When I write, I imitate to hear the line. I can't say where it comes from, however a little voice seems to speak in hushed tones it to me. That's not county show the poem gets written, though, impartial how it starts. Honestly? I launch with a first line. Often Berserk start with a first and resolve line—something to work toward. It equitable best if I can also bank with a title. That occurs confine about fifty percent of my rhyming. Writing poems is about luck. Splendid poem gets made by grace unaccompanie. There's a hocus-pocus to poeming. Funny can't explain it.

"I am chiefly dazzling by the delights of the sensitivity and the pleasures (read lusts) make a rough draft the flesh. In the last coalesce of years, my writing has full on a sharper edge. It's bleaker and a little less forgiving. Blue blood the gentry verbs are meaner. The nouns more less fair. I've had a piece of loss (deaths of friends, family) in the last few years, at an earlier time the despairs have caught up concurrence the poems."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, October 1, 2000, Judy Clarence, regard of Heaven, p. 107.

Publishers Weekly, Revered 14, 2000, review of Heaven, proprietress. 350.