Jane Ellen Glasser's fifth poetry collection begins and ends on the metaphor of the title's image: "I will wear gratitude like a red coat, / forbearing the shifting/ seasons of hope and doubt." The book consists of six sections, beginning with an affirmation of a good life despite-or perhaps because of-the challenges and difficulties inescapable when one has lived a long time. Loss is the natural consequence of enduring, and Glasser does not shy away from exploring themes of loneliness, illness, and death, transmuting what is painful into art. Her words open a little door for the reader to enter and say, "Yes, I've been here." In one section, she addresses life's other big theme-love, its intoxication and heartache. In a hallmark grouping of ekphrastic poems, the lines are inspired by the works of artists as diverse as Ingres, Botero, Seurat, and Manet. Another series explores the weird deaths of famous writers. We also find signature Glasser stuff: lyrical poems suffused with imagery of birds, trees, mountains, rivers-nature as mirror into a deeper understanding of human nature. In circular design, the collection closes on affirmation. This is Glasser at her best
About the Author: Jane Ellen Glasser's poetry has appeared in numerous journals, such as Hudson Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Georgia Review, Hayden's Ferry Review and Poetry Northwest. Her poems have garnered numerous awards from the Irene Leache Society, Puddingstone, and the Poetry Society of Virginia, and she has been recognized for outstanding articles on teaching poetry that were featured in Virginia English Bulletin and English Journal. In the past she reviewed poetry books for the Virginian-Pilot, edited poetry for the Ghent Quarterly and Lady Jane's Miscellany, and co-founded the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review. A first collection of her poetry, Naming the Darkness, with an introduction by W. D. Snodgrass, was issued by Road Publishers in 1991. She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry 2005, and her award-winning book, Light Persists, published by Tampa University Press in April 2006, received an honorable mention in the 2007 Library of Virginia Literary Awards. Her chapbook, On the Corner of Yesterday, was released by Pudding House Publications in 2010. The Long Life won the Poetica Publishing Company Chapbook Contest 2011.