The Usable Field
These lyric elegies, spoken by the "under-self," become a series of subtle chants which sing the speaker into being both physically and spiritually, and through which Mead seeks solace, enlightenment, and joy in the cycles of life and death in the natural world.
Some Praise for The Usable Field:
“Jane Mead penetrates grief with alacrity and burning self-scrutiny. This work enters the world like wild rain and lightning, an inheritance from Celan’s and Tsvetaeva’s stuttered lyricism”
— Jane Miller
“Jane Mead’s our Emily Dickinson, our most ambitious solitary. Her austere poems are brilliant: endlessly inventive, syntactically, tonally and emotionally rich.”
— Ira Sadoff