Author Description

Poetry. "[N]o one questions / how a ladder can / rest against a cloud." There are moments when the poetry of Jonathan Greene can seem as airy and insubstantial as the cover of his latest collection. Though each exquisitely well-chosen word bears the full weight of human experience, his touch is so light and sure that his poems float on the page, and in our minds upon reading them. This seeming simplicity betrays a mastery of poetic craft by an author who has been at this for six decades now. And if his verses more often touch on mortality and loss, his humor is intact, as in this characteristically short scene "In the Pumpkin Patch": "The toddler used to / getting his way, picks out / a pumpkin he can't lift." Fortunately Greene is back to lend a hand, with poetry to make life no less serious, but a bit easier to bear.