Tag: jessica schneider

Poetry by Waqas Jani
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The cover of Jessica Schneider's classic poetry collection, "Wordshapes".

Grace of Greatness: on Jessica Schneider’s “WordShapes” (Selected Poems)

Lately, I have been reading Wordshapes: Selected Poems of Jessica Schneider, and noticed how easy it is to appreciate her poetry even on a surface level for its manifest quality. Arresting phrases, crafty narratives, and images startling into their own momentum are lit the moment the mind breaches them. It is akin to watching electricity disperse its patterns – not that such a simple metaphor can ensconce the subtlety and variety displayed across these poems, but for now such springs to mind. Great poetry has a way of taking hold of the senses, as one is grateful and humbled, and the blood flows well. It is interesting how these bodily responses are first to register what the mind later filters – and in some cases, the very thing registered isn’t there to begin with. This has happened to me several times, especially when the writing is rich, and in what seems like an instance of imbuement your own creativity slips in.

Strange how these various reactions work, but for now let us get to the poems: […]

Poetry by Ezekiel Yu
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A self-portrait of a young Claude Monet wearing black and sporting a beard, set next to Jessica Schneider's collection of ekphrastic poetry, "Ekphrasm".

Transforming Claude Monet: On Jessica Schneider’s “Theme de Camille” (EKPHRASM, 2022)

Art’s encounter elicits a multiplicity of responses, most of which are perfectly commonplace, barely penetrating superficial acknowledgment. This would be the main method of engagement for most people (including artists) most of the time, since no matter how much one loves or professes to love the arts, no one has enough time in the day to deeply engage with every work of art they come across. Indeed, many works of art don’t bother to ask such from the percipient in the first place, intentions notwithstanding.

Yet there is always the moment of real and lasting engagement. Sometimes this is due to the work’s undeniably high quality, and other times due to whim and circumstance, with works of varying quality. Sometimes, there is only the engager’s want, beneath which the art must break or bend – or transform. Let us consider Jessica Schneider’s poem “Theme de Camille”, from her 2022 collection, “Ekphrasm”. […]

Book Review by Chin Jian Xiong
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An imagined landscape of the Rio Grande from Jessica Schneider's novel, "Human Stuff".

For A Lonely While: On Jessica Schneider’s “Human Stuff”

Art opens within a necessary season.

Indeed, it did in me, for my season primarily wanted succour. Adolescence, unstable time, grew the need to grow against a reality taken in. And, I admit – it was The Catcher in the Rye that placated that need, sent me towards the altar of Art. Holden’s woes seemed mine, drew me, and I turned pages to find my mirror. It was only later I learned Art could be much more, for a mirror need shatter that tells much truth; when behind – infinite lies.

So angsty works will always be in demand: the need will long exist. Yet, a certain arbitrariness resides in therapy when woe wants little but its own identification. The works in which I found my peace were, in hindsight, of variable quality: anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, the stories of David Foster Wallace, the novels of Herman Hesse. Some, I would realize, said deeper things, used angst as interrogation rather than end. As many a mature reader of Salinger would note, even Holden has an unreliability that implies a reality beyond him. He is, after all, recounting his tale from a sanitorium, broken, not a voice of authority. But such a work has limits. Nowadays, particularly in YA Lit, there are too many Holdens: clone Holdens, zombie Holdens. In the end, succour is lucrative. […]