Publication date:
from Cyberwit Press
In a culture that celebrates youth, CROW SONGS by Jane Ellen Glasser gives voice to life’s last chapter, acknowledging the challenges of aging but also the benefits of leisure to explore the inner life and an aesthetic of beauty that time does not diminish. She discredits the stereotypical image of elderly women, turning a phrase like “old crow” into a trope worthy of contemplation. And she defies picturing the last years as an affliction of loneliness. To Glasser being alone is to be rich in her own company after a life of being responsible for and answerable to others. Glasser does not shy away from looking death in the face to measure the vitality and importance of what years have been given and what years that are left to praise the gift of a long life.
from Cyberwit Press
In a culture that celebrates youth, CROW SONGS by Jane Ellen Glasser gives voice to life’s last chapter, acknowledging the challenges of aging but also the benefits of leisure to explore the inner life and an aesthetic of beauty that time does not diminish. She discredits the stereotypical image of elderly women, turning a phrase like “old crow” into a trope worthy of contemplation. And she defies picturing the last years as an affliction of loneliness. To Glasser being alone is to be rich in her own company after a life of being responsible for and answerable to others. Glasser does not shy away from looking death in the face to measure the vitality and importance of what years have been given and what years that are left to praise the gift of a long life.
Publication date: January 20, 2021
from Cyberwit Press Amazon $15.00
https://www.amazon.com/Staying-Afloat-during-Plague-Glasser/dp/8194900379/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=jane+ellen+glasser&qid=1611766618&s=books&sr=1-1
“Staying Afloat during a Plague” by Jane Ellen Glasser opens with poems that recreate varied reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic, many told through the persona of those impacted: for instance, a mother laid off from her job and threatened with eviction, workers at a slaughterhouse inadequately protected. A lifelong theme, the natural world is celebrated as teacher, healer, and muse while also addressing its abuse, the human ego overriding concern for the environment and the rights of animals. At seventy-six Glasser still addresses the longing for and the fallacies of romantic love. The book closes with existential meditations on life’s final chapter.
from Cyberwit Press Amazon $15.00
https://www.amazon.com/Staying-Afloat-during-Plague-Glasser/dp/8194900379/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=jane+ellen+glasser&qid=1611766618&s=books&sr=1-1
“Staying Afloat during a Plague” by Jane Ellen Glasser opens with poems that recreate varied reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic, many told through the persona of those impacted: for instance, a mother laid off from her job and threatened with eviction, workers at a slaughterhouse inadequately protected. A lifelong theme, the natural world is celebrated as teacher, healer, and muse while also addressing its abuse, the human ego overriding concern for the environment and the rights of animals. At seventy-six Glasser still addresses the longing for and the fallacies of romantic love. The book closes with existential meditations on life’s final chapter.
FutureCycle Press, 2019 https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Ellen-Glasser-Selected-Poems/dp/1942371918/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=jane+ellen+glasser+selected+poems&qid=1585170828&s=books&sr=1-2
Paperback $17.99
Kindle $2.99 free with membership
Moving from marriage to divorce, from motherhood to the death of a daughter, from love affairs to being a lover of solitude, Jane Ellen Glasser’s poems acknowledge pain not only as inescapable but, ironically, as necessary in opening the heart to beauty. From five previous books, Selected Poems culls Glasser’s finest work. Although over forty years her tone shifts from darkness to the persistence of light, several themes endure. Nature, as a mirror for human nature, both informs and heals. Birds, particularly the egret, fly through these pages as talismans. Transformed through imagery and metaphor, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, art is recast in the brushstrokes of words, and inanimate objects and the dead are given voice. In her recent work, disillusionment becomes acceptance, the imperfect becomes perfect, and “the wound,” to use Rumi’s words, “is the place where the light enters you.”
Paperback $17.99
Kindle $2.99 free with membership
Moving from marriage to divorce, from motherhood to the death of a daughter, from love affairs to being a lover of solitude, Jane Ellen Glasser’s poems acknowledge pain not only as inescapable but, ironically, as necessary in opening the heart to beauty. From five previous books, Selected Poems culls Glasser’s finest work. Although over forty years her tone shifts from darkness to the persistence of light, several themes endure. Nature, as a mirror for human nature, both informs and heals. Birds, particularly the egret, fly through these pages as talismans. Transformed through imagery and metaphor, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, art is recast in the brushstrokes of words, and inanimate objects and the dead are given voice. In her recent work, disillusionment becomes acceptance, the imperfect becomes perfect, and “the wound,” to use Rumi’s words, “is the place where the light enters you.”
FutureCycle Press, 2017
futurecycle.org/index.php/en/catalog/by-title/item/427-in-the-shadow-of-paradise
Paperback $15.95
Kindle $2.99
In the Shadow of Paradise” by Jane Ellen Glasser opens with an epigraph by Rumi, “The wound is the place where the light enters you,” a theme resonant throughout her seventh collection. Subjects such as romantic love, aging, disappointment and death are examined through a lens of understanding that loss is both inevitable and necessary in growing a full life. In her poem “Cracks,” she reminds us, “Every scar/ is the shorthand/ of an important story,” each crack “…a door opening/ onto a larger room.” A signature of her work, Glasser views nature as a mirror for human nature. Swallowtails hovering above phlox suggest that “…pleasure/ can only be tasted in small sips.” Taking a magnifying glass to the small, the commonplace, she discovers remarkable meaning. A piece of recovered sea glass intimates that what we discard, “bury/ in a sea of repression,” over time returns, “softened/ by memory, beautiful/ in its forgiveness.” Another source of inspiration is art. Works by Rousseau, Chagall, Picasso, Rubens are springboards for self-examination in her ekphrastic poems. With wisdom harvested by time, the overriding tone of her collection is one of praise, celebrating a life “happily flawed.
Future Cycle Press, 2015
Available from FutureCycle Press
Available from Amazon.com
Paperback $9.95
Kindle
The art of Kintsugi—using gold to fill cracks or mend shards in Japanese ceramics—suggests that when a thing has been damaged by time, it becomes more beautiful. So, too, for human experience, offers Jane Ellen Glasser. In her sixth poetry collection, the tone is one of gratitude. Glasser treats even serious subjects, such as late love and life’s end, with wit and a light hand. In her 70th year, Glasser does not bemoan aging; she chooses instead to acknowledge—even celebrate—the inevitable accidents of experience that grow a life. In the closing poem, “Last Wishes,” she offers guidance to her future eulogist. Just as the Japanese cracked pot is imperfectly perfect, she tells us how she wants to be remembered: “Say I was perfectly flawed. / Say I was human.”
FutureCycle Press, 2013
Available from FutureCycle Press
Available from Amazon.com
Paperback $15.00
Kindle $3.99
Jane Ellen Glasser’s fifth poetry collection begins and ends on the metaphor of the title’s image: “I will wear gratitude like a red coat,/ forbearing the shifting/ seasons of hope and doubt.” The book consists of six sections, beginning with an affirmation of a good life despite—or perhaps because of—the challenges and difficulties inescapable when one has lived a long time. Loss is the natural consequence of enduring, and Glasser does not shy away from exploring themes of loneliness, illness, and death, transmuting what is painful into art. Her words open a little door for the reader to enter and say, "Yes, I’ve been here." In one section, she addresses life’s other big theme—love, its intoxication and heartache. In a hallmark grouping of ekphrastic poems, the lines are inspired by the works of artists as diverse as Ingres, Botero, Seurat, and Manet. Another series explores the weird deaths of famous writers. We also find signature Glasser stuff: lyrical poems suffused with imagery of birds, trees, mountains, rivers—nature as mirror into a deeper understanding of human nature. In circular design, the collection closes on affirmation. This is Glasser at her best.
Available from FutureCycle Press
Available from Amazon.com
Paperback $15.00
Kindle $3.99
Jane Ellen Glasser’s fifth poetry collection begins and ends on the metaphor of the title’s image: “I will wear gratitude like a red coat,/ forbearing the shifting/ seasons of hope and doubt.” The book consists of six sections, beginning with an affirmation of a good life despite—or perhaps because of—the challenges and difficulties inescapable when one has lived a long time. Loss is the natural consequence of enduring, and Glasser does not shy away from exploring themes of loneliness, illness, and death, transmuting what is painful into art. Her words open a little door for the reader to enter and say, "Yes, I’ve been here." In one section, she addresses life’s other big theme—love, its intoxication and heartache. In a hallmark grouping of ekphrastic poems, the lines are inspired by the works of artists as diverse as Ingres, Botero, Seurat, and Manet. Another series explores the weird deaths of famous writers. We also find signature Glasser stuff: lyrical poems suffused with imagery of birds, trees, mountains, rivers—nature as mirror into a deeper understanding of human nature. In circular design, the collection closes on affirmation. This is Glasser at her best.
The Poetica Publishing Company 2011 Chapbook Contest Winner
Available from Poetica Publishing
Chapbook $10.00
"Jane Ellen Glasser's The Long Life repays full immersion. These are not flashy poems but in their quiet tones they work powerfully through the choice of brilliant just metaphor and verb. She has a lot to say about living day to day and aging with full intelligence." Marge Piercy
Available from Poetica Publishing
Chapbook $10.00
"Jane Ellen Glasser's The Long Life repays full immersion. These are not flashy poems but in their quiet tones they work powerfully through the choice of brilliant just metaphor and verb. She has a lot to say about living day to day and aging with full intelligence." Marge Piercy
Pudding House Publisher, 2010
Chapbook $10.00
Out of print
Chapbook $10.00
Out of print
University of Tampa Press, 2006
Available from Amazon.com
Hardback $20.00 Paperback $12.00
Jane Ellen Glasser steers toward the sun and lifts our spirits. Through nature the poet is put in touch with her inner world in the stillness of a meditation that delights and awakens. Yet she does not shun life's difficulties. At the heart of the book are poems mourning her daughter Jessica. Glasser courageously addresses loss and doubt as she leads us on an enlightening journey, wide enough to encompass gratitude and joy, blessed by images and language full of grace for eye and ear.
Available from Amazon.com
Hardback $20.00 Paperback $12.00
Jane Ellen Glasser steers toward the sun and lifts our spirits. Through nature the poet is put in touch with her inner world in the stillness of a meditation that delights and awakens. Yet she does not shun life's difficulties. At the heart of the book are poems mourning her daughter Jessica. Glasser courageously addresses loss and doubt as she leads us on an enlightening journey, wide enough to encompass gratitude and joy, blessed by images and language full of grace for eye and ear.
Road Publishers, 1991.
Available from Amazon.com
Price varies.
In her first collection of poetry, Jane Ellen Glasser reveals that she is a poet of maturity and skill. Her open and frank approach to even the most daringly emotional subjects in a voice both musical and vital brings poetry to life and life to poetry.