“Francey Jo Kennedy Grossman’s haunting collection of poems ACORN RAIN transports the reader to a past that’s profoundly present. Throughout her work, memory spins a lyrical zoetrope for us to glimpse both the agonies and wonders of everyday life, a life we come to find is transformed by the power of images, which become portals to the mysteries only the passage of time can bring to bear this beautifully.”
–Megan Marie Sexton, Ph.D., Editor: Five Points: A Journal of Literature & Art, Georgia State University. Department of English
The poems of Acorn Rain reveal a life of gentility and fortitude, the interweaving of loss and gratitude. As Kennedy says, “the skin’s healing begins before it is cut.” I felt invited to listen to the music of ordinary life (always specific and extraordinary)– childhood remembered with a sigh, with the perspective of age: “that world of fragmented faith/ childhoods willing suspension of distrust.”
She poses questions with the innocence of a child trying to figure out how the world works, but stuns you in the very adult heart. “My posture is unchanged/ here I stand–/ Why then does the ground feel so close /that my face scratches the dirt”
–Nancy Hechinger, Faculty NYU Interactive, Telecommunication Program, Author: Poetry Letter to Leonard Cohen
Frances Jo Kennedy’s Acorn Rain is a stunning collection filled with the things of being alive, of being here—of facing the difficult landscape of, say, the death of parents, forgiving those who have wronged us, or simply finding a way to live with the past, and embrace it—take the recollection of the father whose erratic behavior may bring “gentle good night songs and prayers” or “smashed mirrors / leather strap threats / some promises kept […]. These poems hinge on the power of memory, and the constant flow of time.
In the poem “Where have You Been,” the speaker is asked: “What were you most afraid of?” And the response: “Memories—too many / uninvited, […] inextinguishable.”
But Kennedy proves in Acorn Rain that she is fearless as she explores the dim-lit rooms of the past for meaning, and sustenance, to make some sense, for us readers, of the here and now.
–Travis Denton, author of My Stunt Double, and When Pianos Fall from the Sky
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