Jennifer Hartenburg

Form, Language, Image & Sound

Through precision of form, language, image, and sound, my poetry aims to dig into the mud-luscious mix of anxiety, sensuality, doubt, love, beauty, and loss that inheres in our shared human experience. While the bulk of my work is written in syllabic verse, I also explore a variety of other forms ranging from pantoum and sestina, to blank verse and alliterative-accentual, to sprung rhythm and prose poem, and more. From the “tangled ripe undergrowth” of “sleep’s black wood” to milk-drunk orchids, birds in palpitations, drowned lovers, and a headless Christ, these poems invite you to “reconcile yourself to clay” and tamp down on this one wild anagogical life we’ve been given.