Phenomena

Jane Blanchard is a poet of fine sensibility and deep warmth. In these luminous sonnets, we see the range of her interests and sympathies, from family lore to Arthurian legend, from the paintings of Bruegel and Van Gogh to flowers placed on a roundabout. Her voice, quiet and compassionate, inspires aesthetic pleasure and a sense of moral trust. Phenomena is a lovely collection.

-Julia Griffin

Jane Blanchard inhabits the sonnet form with grace, subtlety and wit, along with an ear fine-tuned to the variations in tone and syntax that make her contemporary take on the form so satisfying. Phenomena takes its epigraph from Wordsworth's reference to ". . . the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground," and Blanchard demonstrates just how fertile this ground can be, both in subject material and in its adaptability to a conversational register. These sonnets range over the visual arts, history, football, the quirks and waywardness of family life, and birds, balancing fluidity of style with appreciation of texture and detail. This collection will give lasting pleasure.

-D.A. Prince

In poems that explore art, faith, and everyday blessings, Jane Blanchard's gift for meter is evident throughout these accomplished, stylistically varied sonnets. The poet's blend of ekphrastic insight and biographical context is especially impressive in a sequence on the life and work of Italian painter Lavinia Fontana, but more personal poems such as "Publix," in which a supermarket encounter stirs thoughts of an estranged daughter, embody a tender poignance enhanced by the poet's understated voice. There's humor here, as in "Faux Beau" or "The Cow Horn Club," and history, too, as evidenced in poems on Joan of Arc, Arthurian legend, the original Siamese twins, and more. Taken together, Jane Blanchard's Phenomena offers a multitude of epiphanies in an inspired cascade of concisely rendered sonnets.

-Ned Balbo