Canadian Poetry; Wet Ink Books; Canada; Canadian Literature; publishing; www.WetInkBooks.com; Devour; Devour: Art & Lit Canada; Find all of our mags; “Devour” and “The Ambassador” –www.issuu.com/richardgrove1/stacks/bc11ecdd1e7646c4b1fac2bb7aef11ef
 

 

Jennifer Wenn

 

 
Canadian Poetry; Hidden Brook Press; Canada; Canadian Literature; publishing; www.hiddenbrookpress.com; Devour; Devour: Art & Lit Canada; Find all of our mags; “Devour” and “The Ambassador” –www.issuu.com/richardgrove1/stacks/bc11ecdd1e7646c4b1fac2bb7aef11ef
 

 

Reviewers are welcome to quote, borrow or edit any of the below blurbs.

Send us a link to your review and we will link it to our social media.

 

 

Jennifer Wenn captures a sublime beauty in her poems.

 

Emergence brings the reader a splendid collection of poems.

 

Jennifer Wenn presents an inward and outward perspective of life with these poems.

 

 

 

From John B. Lee, Poet Laureate of the city of Brantford, Norfolk County and Canada Cuba Literary Alliance:

“Sing the celebration for us,” Jennifer Wenn importunes in the last line of the penultimate poem of her latest book Emergence.  The closing section of this fine collection is dedicated to the poems of Sappho, who wrote the line as translated from the Greek by Paul Roche “love can make a poet out of us all”.  And reading these sonant poems in this collection we all become poets of the tenth muse, singing our canticles of harmony in chorus with the voice of Wenn.  The material is transformed into the lyrical, and we partake and find solace even in tragic moments.  It is impossible to encapsulate and thereby capture the variety of themes in this book in a short words of praise, so I’ll let Jennifer Wenn have the last word as she writes in her eponymous poem “Emergence”:

 

the truth will be honoured,

the silence ended …

 

 

 

From David Stones, poet and performer, sfumato and Essays of Light :

From crickets to milkweed, Greek mythology to Jackson Pollock, Vimy to Juno and everything in between, Jennifer Wenn gifts readers with a sumptuous, poetic romp that is part story-telling and world survey, part reflective commentary and the tenderest of introspection. This is a finely tuned, erudite collection that will both soothe and sting, placate and anger, emote and inform. Whatever your response, these pieces will stay with you, as is the magic of incisive thought and words well written.

 

 

 

And in addition, here are some reviews and blurbs for my previous books:

 

 

A Song of Milestones

Shortlisted for the Big Pond Rumours Chapbook Prize

 

 

From the review by Pegasus Literary:

 

Contemplative poems with striking images stir the soul in this poetry collection.  Wenn writes with a defining emotional touch in these verses…Wenn’s poems are written by skilled hands.

 

Hear Through the Silence

Back cover blurb #1, from Tom Cull (author of Bad Animals):

As the subtle wordplay in the title suggests, Hear Through the Silence takes up questions of being, becoming, and belonging. This is a book about not only hearing, but also here-ing: Wenn’s poems travel and explore, criss-crossing oceans and decades, seeking memory, origin, and metaphysical union. Harnessing the power of the imagination and language’s rich possibilities, Wenn sings songs of radical self-making. Her “Transgender Anthem” for example, puts me in mind of Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese,” boldly announcing the transgender subject’s place in the family of things. In calling out to Romantic forebears who include Blake and Whitman, Wenn claims a tradition while also expanding it to fit her experience of the pain and profound beauty of making and claiming home. And, as much as this collection looks inward, it also looks outward and across time. Longer poems such as Barnardo Boy and Auschwitz Threnody delve into war, genocide, displacement, and survival, but I find that I’m equally moved by the elegance of shorter, elegiac poems that remember an old friend, a pet, a long-lost stuffed animal. Regardless of scope and focus, what unites this collection is its spirit of invitation and welcome to the reader—you are welcome here; you are welcome, hear. 

 

 

 

Back cover blurb #2, from Richard-Yves Sitoski (Owen Sound Poet Laureate 2019-2023)

Jennifer Wenn’s range is dazzling: herein you will find intimate lyrics about the self, observational verse parsing common experiences, and extended series on historical events. At every turn, Wenn lifts the stones in her path to take a microscopic look at what lies beneath. What she finds doesn’t always reveal us at our best, and she’s not afraid to deal with situations that draw us inward upon ourselves to find “a gaping, grief-stained, / laughter-sized hole opening up.”  But by the same token, if you harken to her spiky language, you are just as likely to uncover moments of hope in poems illuminating the potential for humans to transform themselves, for individuals to confront and transcend the tyrannies of history, society and biology.

 

 

 

Penn Kemp’s review on Goodreads:

The stories of Wenn’s journey are poignant and inspiring, especially “The Transgender Anthem” and “He” in the women’s sauna but also one about being silenced in the choir! Her imagistic haiku are lovely. The achingly powerful voices from Birkenau call out for performance: “you entrusted us with / your fleeting journey / that flickers through a burst suitcase”.

 

 

 

Lindsay Soberano Wilson’s full review on Amazon:

Jennifer Wenn’s Hear Through the Silence is a full-bodied journey of the self, time, and place through dark times and finally the light. Wenn captures the sublime beauty of the “Sistine Chapel” despite being at a loss for words when she says, “I turn it over in my heart, sensing across the decades.” Still, “Here” Wenn stands in the self-affirming “Transgender Anthem” with the lyrical repetitiveness of “we are here.” Despite the safety of the metaphorical chapel and a developing self, the poet grapples with belonging in the poem “Intrusion” where she feels “I am intruding on their world,” as she strives “to turn the page” into a future that honours the past. In Wenn’s captivating Holocaust poems, such as “Starting from Krakow,” the speaker seeks to “pay respects, to experience the witness.” Here the sublime becomes grotesque when everyday items like a suitcase and glasses demonstrate how humans were dehumanized in poems like “Reduction” and “Petr’s Suitcase.” It’s this reduction that Wenn also fights against, recalling that when she visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial she was “different then” and “untransitioned.” The final section explores the ability to hold two opposites at the same time when the poet describes the “Nile Sunset” as “the peace of twilight draws close.” This “re-awakening” culminates with a strong sense of self in the “Soloist” in “pulling threads of the ineffable from spirit’s core and weaving glorious sonic tapestry,” because the poet has turned the page for the reader to reach new depths and heights.

Canadian Poetry; Wet Ink Books; Canada; Canadian Literature; publishing; www.WetInkBooks.com; Devour; Devour: Art & Lit Canada; Find all of our mags; “Devour” and “The Ambassador” –www.issuu.com/richardgrove1/stacks/bc11ecdd1e7646c4b1fac2bb7aef11ef