Harmony River

Description

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

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.

Cover art by Raewyn Harris