Necessity of Flight, Poems by Jane Alynn

Song, flight, a glimpse of divinity: birds stitch the recurring threads of Jane Alynn’s artful Necessity of Flight.

Sample Poems by Jane Alynn

“Jane Alynn offers what we expect of our finest poets: language that glows with intelligence, images that build layered regions of emotion, and sequences that are models of human experience. What could be better than: ‘The mind a mere immensity of nothing,’ or ‘the blunder of unearned godliness.’”—James Bertolino

“Jane Alynn's first book, Necessity of Flight is wonderfully inhabited by birds, flowers, food and family. As she says in her beautiful final poem ‘Chuckanut Drive in Winter’ she goes ‘slowly to see things clearly.’ And her poems prove it. Full of careful observation and lush description, they walk at the boundaries: between nature and the human world; between human and human. They've left me richer for having read them.” —Patricia Fargnoli

“Reader, I trust these poems. Jane Alynn transforms lived experience into the natural realm of wonder. With honest insight, The Necessity of Flight allows us moments of true pleasure. In these pages, house cats become ‘two purses in the window seat’ and the Rugosa rose is seen as ‘shaggy, with unkempt habits.’ But what I admire most in this book are the marriage poems. With an unflinching eye, the speaker watches as two trapeze artists stand in for a couple’s real life struggles. ‘I go slow along this road to see things clearly,’ Alynn informs us. How lucky we are for this invitation to travel with her. A fine debut.”—Susan Rich

“At the heart of Jane Alynn’s Necessity of Flight is a profound reverence for and kinship with the natural world. The point of view of this stunning first full-length collection is one of wonder and continual discovery. From ‘the cloudburst of starlings’ to ‘the bluest silence’ the language is balanced and beautiful. Truly breathtaking turns of phrases abound throughout, but Alynn is an extraordinary master of the last line. Here’s just one example from ‘Small Gods’: ‘And for a little while at least, she renews my faith / in a life of radiant poverty.’ Like the ‘strangely woven curtain / elaborately spun of threads and dust’ from the poem ‘House Spider,’ Alynn’s Necessity of Flight is taut, enchanting, and fully glistening.”—Lana Hechtman Ayers

Jane Alynn is a poet, essayist, and fine art photographer. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she has lived many places, including New York City, Okinawa, California's high desert, and San Diego before relocating to the Seattle area. She received a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from Chapman University, in Orange, California, and later a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University Southern California at Los Angeles. In 2002, she retired from a twenty-eight-year career as a psychotherapist to devote her time to writing and making photographs. Besides this poetry collection, Alynn is the author of Threads & Dust, a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press in 2005. She has been the recipient of a William Stafford Award from Washington Poets Association. Her poems and prose have appeared in a number of journals and magazines, including Calyx, Floating Bridge Review, Manorborn, The Pacific Review, Quercus Review, Snowy Egret, StringTown, The Sun, and Switched-on Gutenberg, as well as in several anthologies. A mother and now a grandmother, she currently lives in Anacortes, Washington, with her photographer husband and two cats. For more on this author, please visit her website at www.janealynn.com/.

ISBN: 978-1936370450, 116 pages

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