there are as many songs in the world as branches of coral

Free Verse Editions

Series Editor: Jon Thompson

Elizabeth Jacobson’s new poems are both profound and transparent, which is rare. Also rare is their intimacy with the natural world, rendered in language memorable for its near-microscopic observation and precision. Set in the desert, the tropics, and the human mind, the poems move fluently from family to ecological grief to the life of the spirit and beyond. Curious, eloquent, surprising, and probing, this book takes a hard, compassionate look at what it means to be human right now, moment to moment, on this injured planet. It’s a book that deepens every time I read it. -Chase Twichell, author of Things as It Is

In Elizabeth Jacobson’s poetry, ＂What is the lure of this world?＂ is not just a question but a way to encounter what is actual in whatever she sees, imagines or remembers. Her replies create the bracing sensation of engagement with a world just now coming into range. There is enthrallment-and also candor, ＂As if this will cure one failure of the self after another.＂ There Are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral is a profound achievement. -Ron Slate, author of Joy Ride

From the opening poem, where ＂even a jar void of substance holds emptiness as if it were full,＂ we are carried by a poet who looks so hard she sees past seeming emptiness, past void, to the energies and emotions that bind us to each other and the natural world. Here, sugar-dusted bee’s ＂eat the sweetness off each other’s bodies,＂ pine roots spread ＂their ballad into the earth,＂ and every observation of the more-than-human is an opportunity to delight in the rituals and desires of others, which might then reflect us back to ourselves. Poems of childhood share the origin story of a poet who ＂put anything in my mouth / to know it: ＂ sucking salt from the legs of starfish, ash from discarded cigarettes, even dirt clinging to a hairpin from the grounds of Birkenau. Here, the poet insists on taking in the full range of the world’s hardships and wonders and, like a bee converting nectar to honey, gives it back to us made new in searching, sensual poems. -Jessica Jacobs, author of unalone

This new collection offers up many secrets. That the human heart has no space or weight limits, is one. Strong works of art like this prompt us to pause. Pause via seduction wielded by language composed of ether, quarter notes and whole rests, Floridian beach sand, high desert soil and leaps of the mind. None lost on the Soul. -Tommy Archuleta, author of Susto

Elizabeth Jacobson was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her second collection of poems, Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, won the New Measure Poetry Prize, selected by Marianne Boruch (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2019) and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. Her other books include Her Knees Pulled In (Tres Chicas Books, 2012), two chapbooks from dancing girl press and Everything Feels Recent When You’re Far Away: Poetry and Art from Santa Fe YouthDuring the Pandemic (Axle Books, 2021), which she co-edited. Elizabeth is a reviews editor for the online literary magazine Terrain.org, and she directs the poetry programs at Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA).