Doubled Over

New book of poetry soon from Jordan Stempleman

True to the double-mindedness of its title, Doubled Over gives us the compensations of humor and the gut-punch of "the ache that's addressed to sense." Socially and intimately embedded, committedly familial, these poems are primers for how to find grace in fallibility, cultivating simultaneously a goofball charm and an elegant poise that honors the obligation and freedom to give an accounting of lived life through and in art. Jordan Stempleman's lyrical bursts counter Keats' not being able to see the flowers at his feet with profusions that may be haywire but are nevertheless celebratory in their unlikeliness and our noticing: "flowers where there shouldn't be" indeed, and I, for one, am grateful for them.

--Dean Young


Jordan Stempleman's poetry is not only the poetry of the everyday, but the poetry of the every moment, feeding "tiny things more tiny things." Each element is sky-lit and dazzling, but the anchor is abstraction -- "the pearl from the dumpster." This is the lyric as a mission disguised as a simple task.

--Anne Boyer