Punctum

In Punctum:, Lesley Jenike’s new collection, she writes, “It’s our language: what can we call a thing / that is and is not.‘ These poems are haunted by a "non-child,’ a child who was not to be born, and with it, a life the speaker was not to live. Absence itself becomes a nearly tangible presence. I don’t know how Jenike does it-breaks your heart and makes you want more-but I can’t remember the last time I read poems as smart and sure and devastatingly precise in their language, imagery, and feeling. In a poem about a fateful ultrasound, one that reveals no fetal heartbeat, she writes, "the doctor calls it practice, snapping off // the screen, tearing up the spit-out photograph. / Next time, she says, it’ll be the real thing. ‘ Mark my words: these poems are-and this poet is-the real thing. Punctum: is a remarkable accomplishment.