Years, Months, and Days

A transfiguration of Die Gemeinschaftliche Liedersammlung —a collection of Protestant hymns originally compiled by a Pennsylvanian-born Swiss-German Mennonite—into heart-breaking lyric poems that bridge secular spirituality and holy reverence with the commonalities of life, death, love, hope, and pain. With a quiet musicality, Jernigan explores the connection between hymn and poem, between death and birth. In a sparse and tender meditation on the possibilities of translation that she describes as “an offering of words to music,” Jernigan celebrates a shared love and landscape that breathes music into poem and prayer alike.