Jennifer Saunders

Self-Portrait with Housewife Jennifer Saunders

Poetry. Winner of the 2017 Clockwise Chapbook Competition. Welcome a bright new poet to the world! Jennifer Saunders romances the uncanny as she unveils the pleasures and the restlessness of that sometimes nesting bird--the housewife. Too often torn between a desire for adventure and a desire for stability, a desire to learn everything to protect family and the world, and a frustration with daily life when it lacks utilitarian or emotional value, we follow Jennifer Saunders on her lyric celebration of the quotidian because it is our own, and she captures for us the strangeness of even our most ordinary moments.--Sandra Alcosser The charming poems of Jennifer Saunders' debut collection are a joy to read--laced with smart observations about our domestic lives and almost humble self-realizations. Whether she's observing 'the first goldfinch of spring / in your cupped hands, its frantic beating heart, ' or becoming a crow, or 'draw[ing] arching eyebrows / that almost / resemble expression, ' Saunders holds steady to her 'housewife's' aesthetic, which is also a poet's aesthetic. 'Why pretend, ' the poet asks, 'things don't blow away?'--Gail Wronsky Jennifer Saunders' poems are thoughtful, sharply observed and complete in themselves as washed stones. She writes wryly of pain and disappointment. She has a clear and accurate eye. She is never sloppy or wordy but many of these poems stick in you with their sharp points, getting under your skin. These are poems of everyday life but there's nothing boring or expected about them.--Marge Piercy