A Jar of Moths: Poems

by Ilene Millman

Praise for A Jar of Moths

Ilene Millman's newest collection of poems, A Jar of Moths, contemplates the flutter and flash of the moth-like memories that we hold in our hearts and release to eat through our “woolly night hours.” Some of the moths are troubling: the phone call from a daughter in college who weeps I'll never be loved again; the dog-eared and ink-smeared books that violated a mother's injunction Never deface a book. Most come with blessings: the knowledge that “you can wrap your past tense/in a heavy woolen scarf/fling it out over a molten sea.” The poems build a sanctuary "out of what we have/in front of us/despite the threat/of fire rain.” They allow us to take time out from our “mundane moments.”

       —Lois Marie Harrod, author of Spat

Ilene Millman’s poems stretch our minds. Words like whines, and whynotness sum up her open-minded thinking and startling fearlessness. Her poems take their subject matter from everyday activities, like walking in the woods and watching dough rise, back through memories of childhood and young womanhood. Everything in this collection of poems is deeply felt and skillfully expressed—the words echo the world of a mother, a grandmother, a wife, a teacher of language. Millman shares with us her wide embrace of vocabulary, vision, and experience. We will be the wiser for reading, and re-reading these poems.

       —Elizabeth Danson, author of Look Again