Jane Ebihara explores in tender detail the topography and emotional ecology of her surroundings in This Edge of Rain. In the process she takes the time necessary to reach a calmer pace of life, like that giant composter…doing its quiet work, as she discovers how to understand growth and regret in unlikely places, where blue sky quiets abyss. She is a sensuous reporter, whether recalling her departed parents or husbands, observing a gravid cowbird, or sharing prompts to guide us on our journey. Her words dance on the dotted line between a downpour and a sunny field. Ebihara has great Jersey sense and shares it with care in this wonderful collection.
Tom Plante, Editor of Exit 13 Magazine
Jane Ebihara has written an exquisite book of poetry, one filled with both a poignant nostalgia and determined, open-hearted anticipation. We are invited into memories of the poet’s childhood and childbirth, hard reckonings with widowhood and loss. Loved ones appear under her insightful eye through changing seasons of the year and of her own life. While regrets are acknowledged, so are the saving powers of the pen and words. These are moving, beautifully rendered poems that will stay with you long after the book is closed.
Donna Baier Stein, Publisher of Tiferet Journal
The poignant poems in Jane Ebihara’s collection, This Edge of Rain, immediately engage the reader. Heartfelt, powerful, and well-rendered, they touch upon love, loss, and survival. She gifts us with unforgettable lines and images: you left me in autumn / you have never left me / both will always be so, she writes of her husband. Of aging she says …winter nears-exposes a view of the horizon summer conceals. In Two Moments, an expectant child …kicks…/ pulses toward her fingers / splayed wide in warm embrace. And, in Aubade, an old woman…craves /…kinship with the living…hungers…/ for morning / then morning again.
These poems linger. We are the richer for them.
Wanda S. Praisner, Recipient of the 2017 New Jersey Poets Prize
