Harmony River

Description

About the Poet—

Stephen Jaech’s poems have appeared in College English, Poetry Northwest, Seattle Review, The Christian Science Monitor, among many other publications. As an award-winning writer and college educator, his publications include two chapbooks “Many Rooms” and “The Machine that Destroys Itself” in addition to a novel, King of Crows. He served as a guest columnist for the News Tribune and was included in the Washington Commission for the Humanities Inquiring Minds panel of speakers. Now retired from Pierce College, he lives in Steilacoom, Washington with his partner Kathrina.

 

Praise—

There’s lots to laud in Harmony River, Stephen Jaech’s new poetry collection, but what engages me most is Jaech’s willingness to proffer an abundance of sensorial detail. In these expansive poems, the reader gets to “press a hand to the wound,” smell “wet wool and Bay Rum,” hear a goldfinch “thump against the window,” taste “silver salmon splayed and dripping fat into the flame.” In Harmony River, the reader doesn’t spectate; s/he participates. -Michael Darcher, Author of Odd Comfort and The Silver State Stories

Conifers, water, rocky landscape, and low light inhabit the outer and inner worlds of a Pacific Northwest poet. Stephen Jaech’s long-awaited collection has all that and more with “confluences, waves/ and wind channeling us/ on our brief passage.” Harmony River views with empathy and subtle wisdom the moments that make up that passage. Attention to the movement of words mirrors attention to details of environment and seasons. But grace and beauty can overlay pain—and life is full of pain in all its forms. Where there is loss or pain, however, there is also redemption found glancingly in a slant of light or the daily changes of “Today, a sweet magnolia, tomorrow a field of snow.”  With apologies to Stephen, who is a private person, I must use this line from “The Gift of Music” to sum up the book: “the wonder comes out/ from the trembling of his heart.” -Sherry Rind, The Storehouse of Wonder and Astonishment

It took me two or three days to get past the first poem in Steve Jaech’s gem lode of a book. First, because the poem was a knock-out punch. Then, I had to sit back and absorb, to read random lines and savor parts of the original experience. Finally, I just wanted to read again and live the poem. “It is/ an unlatched gate you enter and find/ a recognizable cobblestone path/ and a familiar porch where you/ are always welcome and where/ the door opens before you knock.” So it is with Harmony River: enter and live. -James Cervantes, author of From Mr. Bondo’s Unshared Life and Sleepwalker’s Songs: New & Selected Poems

Midwest Review, 2025—

Harmony River is a poetry collection gleaned from the culture and wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and its major poetic influencers. Stephen Jaech’s efforts are steeped in the literary traditions of such names as Theodore Roethke and Pablo Neruda. These roots come to light through poetry that vividly embraces nature and philosophical reflection while paying subtle tribute to these literary predecessors. One example lies in the poem opening the collection, “Enduring Grace”:

Before words appeared on vellum,

before moonlight shone on river ripples,

before hoofprints tamped tracks on mudflats where deltas

adjoined seas, even before chants

rose from clans squatting

near driftwood bonfires,

it lay dormant like bone marrow stem …

The free verse creates intricate connections between nature and human affairs in a manner that will simply delight creative writing teachers, fellow poets, and literature students seeking contemporary poetry collections that represent the intersection of natural history and human affairs. Jaech is especially adept at capturing moments in time and experience, as in “Deep Darkness Grows Darker”:

End of a rural road, close to an abandoned

cowshed, I duck through a gap in barbed

wire and walk across windswept fields.

On grazing land, miles from city lights

and ballparks, beyond up-lit billboards,

I merge with a pasture and a sweep of sky.

These “you are here” creations are powerful observations which also juxtapose human and natural abodes in an intriguing style, as in “Other Side of the Door,” where:

This atrium swallows sound.

Scuffed by generations of foot-

steps, the oak flooring reflects

a tinge of pewter light winnowing

through a frosted glass transom,

crescent moon, above an ironwood door.

What’s on the other side?

Readers and libraries seeking infusions of nature, human affairs, and the connections that lie between them, whether physical or emotional, will relish the opportunity to appreciate Harmony River. Steeped in literary tradition, influenced by other major poets, and delivered in an accessible free verse style designed to appeal to a wide audience, Harmony River stands head and shoulders above many other contemporary poetry collections with its special brand of nature-infused, thought-provoking inspections. -Diane Donovan, MIDWEST REVIEW, California Bookwatch; Donovan’s Literary Recommended Reading

 

Cover art by Raewyn Harris