Description
Rainbow Warrior
by Jacquelyn Markham
$17.99, paper
979-8-88838-113-7
2023
The powerful poems in Rainbow Warrior make connections between the lives of the islanders of the South Pacific impacted by nuclear testing on Bikini and nearby islands and the Deep Water Horizon oil spill that devastated land and sea off the coast of Louisiana. The poems in this collection, some narrative, some epic, some lyrical, reveal the human toll of environmental disasters. Images of the lone Ivory Billed Woodpecker, now extinct, juxtaposed with a child listening to the “Mother of the Sea” chant from a spiral shell, or fledglings the “size of pennies/…copper in the sun” make everyday moments of healing and beauty in nature even more poignant. These poems that follow the moon and the tides strike awe in our hearts and move us toward a deeper social consciousness.
Jacquelyn Markham has loved poetry since wandering through the meadow along a mint lined brook as a child in rural Michigan. She has written poetry nearly as long, so as a freshman in college, she decided to make a career of it. After earning her bachelor’s degree in English, she earned a masters and a doctorate in English and Creative Writing from Florida State University. Author of two chapbooks and a personal mythology, Peering Into the Iris: An Ancestral Journey, she has published nationally and internationally in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies, including Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Lullwater Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, The High Window, Woman and Earth, among others.
During her academic career, Markham’s love of poetry extended to scholarship as she “rescued” 19th century women poets who had fallen into obscurity, focusing on collecting the far-flung poems published by Charlotte Perkins Gilman during her lifetime. The result is the award-winning reference The Complete Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1884-1935, Together with Commentary and Notes (Mellen Press), a thirty-year project that was awarded the Adele Mellen Prize “for its distinguished contribution to scholarship.”
Markham is a recipient of numerous grants and awards for literary merit, including three Georgia Council for the Arts individual artist grants, a South Carolina Arts Commission Community Grant, and an Arts Kentucky Women’s Foundation Award. As a humanities scholar, Dr. Markham has presented hundreds of papers, lectures, and readings of her original work. As a participant in the poets in the schools program, she has guided young poets and writers in workshops and as faculty advisor to student literary journals. Although she retired from university teaching as full professor in English and Women’s Studies, she continues to mentor poets and writers in community settings. She lives and writes near the coast in South Carolina.
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