Bruce Covey presents Jill Alexander Essbaum

Jill Alexander Essbaum (once described as “a cross between Dorothy Parker and a lap dance”) is fast becoming known for her brilliantly sexy poems best represented in Harlot, her 2007 collection from No Tell Books, the cover of which depicts a nude woman embracing a phallus nearly twice her height. What I also love about her poems, however, is the intelligence behind them (“heady” as Molly Arden cheekily describes), her attention both to the traditions and possibilities of form that bring poetry’s notions of “traditional” and “experimental” into a head-on collision. In addition, I hereby nominate Jill (well, along with, in a different way, Heidi Lynn Staples) as contemporary poetry’s best punster, a skill evidenced within “Triptych,” which originally appeared in Coconut Eight. (My nomination is another opportunity for you to agree or disagree with me, O Reader, by posting your own choices!) & on top of all, there’s the theme, to quote H. L. Hix, of “religion as sex and sex as religion” swimming through her work. Twice I’ve had the opportunity to hear Jill read, which is also a treat — she has memorized all of her poems (while I can’t even seem to remember my own first lines!!). So my advice to you, Charming Reader, is to invite Jill to read in your own hometown! Or at least buy all of her books, which also include Heaven (Winner of the Bakeless Prize, 2000), Oh Forbidden (2005), Necropolis (2008), and an appearance in 2008’s The Best American Erotic Poems. Her website is here.

-- Bruce Covey


Triptych

1. Him

I let go my dress in his temple, devoutly.
I brought to him butters in lordly dishes.
He spread my legs like rumor, word-of-mouthly.

2. Hymn

Tears have a talent for falling.
That is their calling.

3. Hem

I have folded my edges.
I've serged and I have pinked.
I have finished my seams.

So it would seem.

-- Jill Alexander Essbaum