Jennifer Perrine's fourth book of poetry, Again, published by Airlie Press

Jennifer Perrine's fourth book of poetry, Again, published by Airlie Press

Monday, August 31, 2020

Jennifer Perrine (2007 & 2010 alum) announced that her fourth book of poetry, Again, was published on September 1 by Airlie Press.

According to the Arilie Press website, Again riffs on common words—tremendous, terrific, disaster, wall, ban—that have been overused and misused in recent years, made to carry the weight of disturbing connotations. In poems that speak through both a collective voice and a singular, personal one, Again maps the emotional territories of this specific—but not unique—moment in United States history. Jennifer Perrine’s poems trace a path through this surreal landscape, illuminating a terrain of disorientation, grief, and shame at the America we have made. Again is an anthem, a reckoning for the “land of the smack that makes us see stars, home of the belt that stripes our backs.”

Drawing on allusions that range from nursery rhymes and folk tales to Simone de Beauvoir and The Wizard of Oz, the poems explore the nuances of each fraught word, recollecting its various meanings and resisting monolithic rhetoric. Through wordplay and wry wit, Again steals these words back, infusing the language “once more / with feeling.”

Congratulations Jennifer!