Jesse Ehrenberg
SURPRISE!
In Jesse's Surprise! world, the Unicorns are back (though scornful of human progress), Jesus is a Vegas magician, and Mickey Mouse has PTSD. But there are still starry nights and twilight transfigurations and poets who speak to us from paupers' graves. With heart and wit, these poems confront complacencies of thought and deed.
—John Roche
Jesse Ehrenberg's Surprise! cracks down reality to its boiling point of now. He's one of many voices in U.S. poetry decrying the calamities and yet finding "sacred songs / in praise of tomorrow." All power to the poets like Jesse who are the lifeblood of America healthy and flowing as we all work through the prevailing idiocy.
—Larry Goodell
From the book:
Winter Birds
Winter birds
swarm
the evening sky,
they rise
and fall
in waves.
Black
against
Blue;
and
the
only sound,
is the sound
of wings.
And when
at last
the night arrives
(tired and
out of sorts)
the birds
settle
slowly
down
from the sky;
and,
with head
tucked
under wing,
they sleep,
and dream.
Dreams of
endless sky,
dreams
of
being carried
by the wind.
Dreams,
like prayers,
offered
to the
freedom
of
flight.
Jesse Ehrenberg started writing poetry as a teenager and, as with any good obsession, has never found a reason to stop. He grew up in and around New York City and moved to New Mexico in the early 70s.
His work strongly reflects the influence of his parents who were both artists and political radicals. Intellectually, this didn’t leave him a lot to rebel against, but certainly left him rebellious as well as a rebel for social change. His work also shows a strong love of nature, and an endless fascination with this plague of lemmings we call the human race.
Before leaving New York, he was published in the "Yale Literary Magazine" and a few other small east-coast collections. More recently, he has been published in several New Mexico poetry anthologies.
Jesse is an English major with a background in Music and Art, and works running sound systems and designing posters for local bands.
SURPRISE! is a 60 page hand-stitched book with spine - $15.
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