The Dream of Reason

In her stunning debut collection, Jenny George wields a poetic voice marked by focus and image-driven strangeness that is saturated in the horrors of the wild and the tamed. Responding to the post-industrial landscape of rural life, Jenny George braids together regional plains poetry and the darkly fantastic imagery of medieval painting. Alluding to Goya’s grotesque bestiary, The Dream of Reason is similarly preoccupied with creatures of all kinds: tiny husks of insects, bats crawling across porches like goblins, purring moths, and pigs, in many forms. George names these creatures and documents the traumas of farm life, the role of the handlers involved, and the empathy and horror that comes with it. The collection lingers, transfixed by its strange imaginings, searching for sense in the dark.

From “Threshold Gods”:

I saw a bat in a dream and then later that week
I saw a real bat, crawling on its elbows across the porch like a goblin.
It was early evening. I want to ask about death.
But first I want to ask about flying.

Jenny George lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she runs a foundation for Buddhist-based social justice. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.