Struggle & Radiance Ten commentaries by Jill Jones Wild Honey Press, 2004
	Struggle & radiance brings together the sharp humour of a mature (anti-)romanticism with an understanding of poetry's struggle with the boundaries between language, self and our relationships with others in the world. It is a poetry that dramatises the desire to know, to share experience, while simultaneously being acutely aware of the limitations of communication, the impasse of reference.  - Peter Minter The title of Jill Jones new chapbook of poems, Struggle & radiance evokes a measure of transcendence in our 24/7, 7/11 times. ... This is the negative domestic, the domestic taken out onto the streets- to ironise large claims, and to emphasise the power and importance of small ones. ... [Jones] holds the world up like a fly wing to the light in a form of nationalism we can actually digest and prosper on. These are ambitious poems, if not obviously so.   - Michael Farrell Stunning artwork on cover, a rectangle of splashes, dashes, swirls of color, which might best be described with a fragment of the poetry as "beyond the difference/ trapped in vision" ("I. A Vision"). ... This is a poet with not only ear and eye fully committed to work together in/on the poem, but the entire body of being is ever present, fully an art, then, not only committing distinctly differing parts to the whole, but of engaged commitment to the larger social body of ideas, not least of which that of self-reflective questions of temporal presence, transcendence and influenced by cultural habituation.  - Christine Murray The striking consistency in these poems is the subtle authority of the narrator. Reading and re-reading these poems, I increasingly gained a sense of the speaker and beheld a measured, composed voice, an unwavering character amid turmoil and modern refractions. Although I personally do not subscribe to the theories of post modernism, I perceived that the speaker approaches the poeticised world in such a manner. For those who are so inclined, there will be plenty to ruminate upon and empathise with in this volume. Still, there was something curious about this book, deceptively hidden beyond the fingernail-thin spine. Each time I opened the book, it was as though I was reading the poems for the first time. This is certainly a kaleidoscopic quality that contemporary poetry can have, though generally at not such short intervals between readings. Perhaps it was my state of mind at the time of reading, or perhaps the aforementioned silences allowed for renewed meaning. - Maria Christoforatos, Cordite Poetry Review This book is available through Wild Honey Press.
One poem from Struggle & Radiance VII A telephone, a saxophone Forgetting how scared to sleep - which is no explanation no matter how elegant or indirect. Belonging with the night the dark chatter of which the street is unaware. What goes on is not forever. Who is on the phone? Is it history some kind of novel? Anyway - a decision! Communists, Zionists Jacobites, Chiliasts. They are now no more mysterious than a door knock      a coup      daughters of democrats      farmers and bankers. Still, I don't belong here even if I do everyone in hell agrees. When the apartment block shakes you know it's for real and life begins despite the facts      a transitional stage      an after-dinner proposal      a departure. Like a moon and saxophone      candles and figures        at bright cymbals and drums fragile religions still strumming faster than the holy carried away by the absolute a fury of faith in love letters gripped by the jaws of dogma      a weak heart muscle      a soft sullen beat        from the radio upstairs. A star fallen past your window into the alley. And nothing else? Whatever turns out winter skims the river of sunlight summer fakes its tan. Debates and monuments      cities unconcerned they pass into you almost, like a refuge where you listen. Copyright Jill Jones Updated 15 August 2005

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