Poems from "Sharing The House"

Jan Seale

Here's an interesting idea: in order to promote your chapbook, take an even smaller selection of the poems in it, have them published by another press, and distribute them for an outrageously low sum in order to give people a sample so they'll go buy the full book. It's blessedly brilliant.

Jan Seale did this with a sixteen-page selection of stuff from her second collection, Sharing the House (RiverSedge, 1982). As with Seale's first book, Bonds, the poetry here is sometimes inconsistent, but there is more good than bad, and in fact this small collection rings somewhat truer to the tones of the muse than did Bonds. Seale does more experimentation with traditional forms here, and does them quite well, along with the usual free verse work.

Inanimate objects conspire as well: chairs beg to be kicked. Tables scrunch down. Doors slam on privacy. Corners, ceilings, floor tiles make themselves more interesting too look at than you. (“Lies, You Wish”)

Seale is a good poet, one worth seeking out if you get the chance; too bad that, like most poets published mostly by small presses, much of her work is out of print.