Take Five

The fact that the title of this book is taken from the great jazz piece written by Paul Desmond for the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out might suggest something about the structure. Gathered from a couple of years work, we would agree on a rubric—place, travel, philosophical ideas that we would respond to from our own experiences but also keeping in mind the others to create a kind of loose dialogue. “Jazz is about freedom within discipline,” Dave Brubeck once said. The book is organized to keep in mind the eclectic mix of rhythms and musical themes in Brubeck’s Time Out  and to echo the three part jazz concerto, So, the first section contains poems that tend to address who we are, the kinds of things we tend to notice (as for example, Laura Baird’s “Surface of Things.” Some of these poems are political as in Barbara Carlson’s “After Threats of Nuclear War,” while some others deal with social or ethical issues. The book has an improv feeling, like the exchanges between Milosz and Merton, Stafford and Bell, in a tradition that harks back to Dante and Cavalcanti.

Collectively, the five poets have published about 35 books (winners of James Agee, Ashland, Concho Rio, Cleveland State, and Juniper Prize and Maxine Kumin Awards)  and have won numerous awards including Guggenheim, Fulbright, Witter-Bynner, NEA, NEH Fellowships, to several Pushcart awards  to awards from being Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and Translation Workshop Awards from Slovenia. The authors also range from New England to Tennessee to Alabama, and teach at universities such as the University of New Hampshire and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, are editors of a couple of journals (Solstice and Poetry Miscellany), and include a tutor and counselor. They have traveled around the world, writing these exchanges as dispatches from Europe and various places in the United States.

Laura (Behr) Baird’s poems appear in numerous magazines and in Paddleshots: Selected and Bottled by River Pretty, and The Heart’s Many Doors. • Deborah Brown is the author of 2 poetry books, co-edited a book on poetics, and co-translated Last Voyage with Richard Jackson and Susan Thomas. • Barbara Siegel Carlson is the author of 2 poetry collections, co-translator of 2 books of poems by SreÄko Kosovel and co-editor of A Bridge of Voices. • Richard Jackson is the author of 15 books of poems, 10 of criticism, and winner of Guggenheim, Fulbright, NEA , and Slovene Order of Freedom. • Susan Thomas has published 3 poetry collections, and a collection of short stories.