Jane Greer (poet)
Jane Greer (b. 1953) is an American poet. She founded Plains Poetry Journal, a quarterly literary magazine that was an advance guard of the New Formalism movement, in 1981, and edited it until 1993. Her poetry collections include Bathsheba on the Third Day (1986) and Love like a Conflagration (2020).
Plains Poetry Journal
In 1981, Greer founded Plains Poetry Journal, a quarterly literary magazine that was an advance guard of the New Formalism movement.[1] In her "Editorial Manifesto," Greer wrote: "Through history, the best poetry has used certain conventions: meter, rhyme, alliteration, assonance, painstaking attention to diction. Not all good poems use all of these conventions, but if a poem uses none of them, why call it a poem?" She decried the sort of conversational free verse "that reads like random thoughts randomly written," and wrote, "All these attempts at unfettered individuality sound alike." In 1984, Writer's Digest named Plains Poetry Journal the "#1 Non-paying U.S. Poetry Magazine."[2] Greer edited Plains Poetry Journal until 1993.
1980s-1990s
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Greer's poems appeared in the anthologies A Formal Feeling Comes, edited by Annie Finch, and A Garland for Harry Duncan, edited by W. Thomas Taylor, and in many journals, including Yale Literary Magazine, First Things, America, and Chronicles. For Chronicles she also wrote the monthly “Letters from the Heartland” column. Her ideas about poetics and esthetics are elaborated in a short essay, "Art Is Made," in A Formal Feeling Comes.
Bathsheba on the Third Day (1986)
In 1986, Greer's first poetry collection, Bathsheba on the Third Day, was released in a limited edition of three hundred copies hand-typeset and hand-printed by Harry Duncan at The Cummington Press.[3]
Return to publication
After nearly three decades working as a civil servant for the State of North Dakota, teaching writing at Bismarck State College, and working in advertising and marketing, Greer returned in 2019 to publishing her poems in journals, including Literary Matters, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, Better Than Starbucks, E-verseradio, Modern Age, First Things, St. Austin Review, and Angelus. She has been featured in a Catholic Culture podcast, and writes reviews for publications such as Literary Matters and Angelus.
Love like a Conflagration (2020)
Greer’s second poetry collection, Love like a Conflagration, was published in May 2020 by Lambing Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The collection of new poems also included a reissue of Bathsheba on the Third Day, and received strong advance endorsements from Samuel Hazo, James Matthew Wilson, Anthony Esolen, Ryan Wilson, C. C. Pecknold, A. M. Juster, and Jennifer Reeser.
Dan Rattelle reviewed Love like a Conflagration in Catholic World Report: “Expanding the scope of the poem”, and Thomas Mirus at Catholic Culture interviewed Greer about the book on a podcast: “CatholicCulture.org podcast Episode 81: Love like a Conflagration/Jane Greer”.
Bibliography
- Love like a Conflagration, Lambing Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. 2020
- Bathsheba on the Third Day, The Cummington Press, University of Nebraska, Omaha, Neb. 1986.
- Greer, Jane. “Rodin’s ‘Gates of Hell,’” A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women, Annie Finch, Ed., Story Line Press, Brownsville, Ore., 1994. Pp. 79-80.
- Greer, Jane. “Professor Dobbs to Jayleen Nichols on Semantics and the Fact of Myth,” A Garland for Harry Duncan, W. Thomas Taylor, Ed., W. Thomas Taylor Press, Austin, Texas, 1989. pp. 37–38.
References
- The passionate mind: sources of destruction & creativity By Robin Fox Google Books p. xviii
- "The Top Nonpaying Markets," Writer's Digest, September 1984, p. 28
- "Description of Bathsheba on the Third Day at The Cummington Press". Archived from the original on 2011-06-12. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
Selected Works
POEMS
- “Harm”
- “Saved”
- “Micha-el”
- “Old Dog”
- “After the Fall”
- “Minus Ninety-seven”
- “Her Lover, at Machu Picchu”
PODCASTS
“CatholicCulture.org podcast Episode 81: Love like a Conflagration/Jane Greer”
GREER ESSAYS & REVIEWS
- “Scholar hopes new book helps readers reclaim the Christian imagination” |Anthony Esolen | The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord
- “Form is the Engine, Family the Freight: Two New Books of Poetry by Ned Balbo” |Ned Balbo | 3 Nights of the Perseids | The Cylburn Touch-Me-Nots
- “Greatness, marginalization, and an endangered species: Dana Gioia’s The Catholic Writer Today and Other Essays” Dana Gioia | The Catholic Writer Today and Other Essays
- “A poet-to-poet perspective on the life and works of St. Francis of Assisi” Ann Wroe | Francis: A Life in Songs
- “Catholics have plenty of reasons to thank the early Church’s bad guys” Mike Aquilina | Villains of the Early Church: And How They Made Us Better Christians
- “Matter matters: a history of the Church in 100 Catholic objects” Mike Aquilina | A History of the Church in 100 Objects
- “There is no finding a boundary” Molly McCully Brown | The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded
REVIEW OF LOVE LIKE A CONFLAGRATION
- “Expanding the scope of the poem” Catholic World Report | Dan Rattelle