Red Ocher

Jessica Poli is the author of four chapbooks and coeditor of the collection More in Time: A Tribute to Ted Kooser. Originally from Pennsylvania, Poli now a PhD candidate at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

“In Red Ocher, Jessica Poli juxtaposes two rich and seemingly unlikely veins of obsession—that of farming and animal husbandry and that of emotional and sensual intimacy—to create truly refreshing poems about mortality and deep affection. Indeed, what we see in Poli is a poet of tremendous skill. It is hard not to be impressed with her command of detail, her deft use of language to construct, in what are ostensibly specific physical moments, a series of elegiac poems of urgent sentiment and deep feeling. Here is an assured debut of a singular new voice in American poetry."—Kwame Dawes, coauthor of unHistory "Red ocher: a pigment made of rust, of the remnants of collapsing stars; a pigment of the aftermath. And much like its namesake, Jessica Poli’s stunning Red Ocher pieces together a type of holy aftermath, beautiful in its corrosion. These gorgeous, penetrating poems build a somber but sacred world of salvage and care."—Gale Marie Thompson, author of Helen or My Hunger