Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig

These rich, lyrical poems, written by Jane Gentry over ten years, register the resonance between the poet's inner being and the outer world's everyday events. Moments of insight-gained while watching a roofer at work next door, napping with the cat, reading on the porch, carrying the laundry, or strolling the aisles of Sam's Club-expose the bright bones of the swiftness of time's passage, reminding us to stay attentive. Gentry's poems are deeply grounded in the continuity of family and homeplace yet also embrace new experiences. The juxtaposition of the ordinary and the beautiful, the paradox of the mundane and the artistic-whether in nature, in relationships, in memories, or in the body-are the hallmarks of her second collection.