Romantic and full of wistful humor, the poetry of Jéanpaul Ferro seduces through its humanity and unconceited, humble nature. Here are poems dealing with break-ups, city life and disappointments; relevant and vibrant, they speak to the heart and mind. True to its name, Jazz has an improvised quality, shifting from step to step with delightful unpredictability. So flip open, dip in and fall in love with poetry again.
“What I can offer to readers of this review is the endorsement of Jéanpaul Ferro’s collection of work in Jazz, and an invitation to read them aloud to friends.”
“Jéanpaul Ferro’s poems welcome you in and pour you a glass of the good stuff, with sinuous music in the background and dark wind in the trees outside to make you want to stay.”
“Jéanpaul Ferro’s Jazz is full of this gut-wrenching diversity that moves us through a realm of heartbreaking worlds full of longing and contradiction. It is high art. It is modern life. It is the very world that we all see around us. As a whole, Jazz is a time capsule for the past ten years of American life.”
“One of my favorite lines of poetry comes from Jéanpaul Ferro’s Poem #27: “I have seen things that a slip of paper cannot hold…” Not only is this line and poem so poignant, but the truth is Jéanpaul can take a slip of paper and consistently manage to hang together wondrous, richly conceived vignettes like fresh linens on a line.”
“Jéanpaul Ferro’s work reaches inside the human heart and pulls out into the light what we often ignore. Poignant and articulate, Ferro should be considered one of the great voices of our generation.”
“The poems of Jazz deal with everything from themes of love, loss, war, and the individuals relationship to the rest of the world around them. Like Whitman, Ginsberg, Dylan, and so many other poets before him, Ferro often writes about the promise and betrayal of American democracy.”
Romantic and full of wistful humor, the poetry of Jeanpaul Ferro seduces through its humanity and unconceited, humble nature. Here are poems dealing with break-ups, city life and disappointments; relevant and vibrant, they speak to the heart and mind. True to its name, Jazz has an improvised quality, shifting from step to step with delightful unpredictability. So flip open, dip in and fall in love with poetry again."
My response to The Greek Isles: The painful shock at the sudden smashing of a thing of beauty is vividly conveyed.