Joani Reese is a poetry blues angel. Think of Bonnie Raitt with steel strings. Think of an embodied muse who confronts danger and loss with heart, with the kind of music that makes us forget misery for the space of art. In Night Chorus, our poet wails artfully in a disciplined and courageous manner that repairs our sense of loss. When we ask ourselves who are the living poets with vision large enough to sing not just the self but the fragile planet, and especially the most vulnerable women upon it--we look to Joy Harjo, Brenda Hillman, Pamela Uschuk, Fady Joudah, Marilyn Hacker, and now, to Joani Reese.
--Marilyn Kallet, Director, Creative Writing Program, University of Tennessee, author of sixteen books, including The Love That Moves Me
Joani Reese's Night Chorus is a symphony of "ferocious love" and longing "tied with gut." This powerful melange of poems is wide-ranging in form and subject matter, imagery and sound, "a vibrating string (that) snaps to startle the ear" and the heart. I am taken with the courageous voice of this poet as she "teeters, naked on the cliff edge, wild sky black. Arms spread, she dives through the terrible rain." And, I follow her, as charmed by her sexy blues rhythms as I am by her keenings of grief as I am by the maturity of her craft. This is one book of deep songs that you will need to buy for all of your friends.--Pamela Uschuk, author Crazy Love, American Book Award, and Blood Flower
What I love about Joani Reese's first full collection, Night Chorus, is how well it moves and weaves through all spaces and contains fearless characters and language. Reese writes like she's lit a typewriter on fire and only the truth will put it out. The poems in Night Chorus make me understand again why I feel so drawn to modern poetry. I thank Joani for writing this great book and for letting me read and savor it early. I appreciate the hell out of that.-Bud Smith, author of the poetry collection Everything Neon and the novels Tollbooth & F250
Night Chorus thrums through "fist-broken air," swells with rich orchestral colors, permeates and transmutes atoms like listening to Rachmaninoff 's Piano Concerto #3. Reese weaves words that make homes in our mouths, lives, secrets. This collection will swallow you whole and stun you with its bold intimacy. "Below the skull of sky, blood leaves its tail." Unforgettable and mesmerizing Night Chorus is necessary and provokes heightened awareness of our existence. -Meg Tuite, author of Bound By Blue"