{"id":5815,"date":"2022-03-07T07:54:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T12:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uakron.go-vip.net\/uapress\/?post_type=product&p=5815"},"modified":"2024-09-26T10:20:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T14:20:55","slug":"instructions-for-takeoff-and-landing","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/product\/instructions-for-takeoff-and-landing\/","title":{"rendered":"Instructions between Takeoff and Landing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The poems in Instructions between Takeoff and Landing<\/em> take place in the middle of myriad journeys: tracking the twin Voyager satellites as they vanish into the unknown, reckoning with a troubling national history, looking back at life lived and forward to the life yet to come. Speakers meditate on the death of loved ones and their own mortality, relationships bent and broken, misleading histories at odds with personal stories, faith and doubt, a ubiquitous media culture, and their own origins and hoped-for destinations. Weaving deft transitions in tone from tender to bombastic, apologetic to brash, and humorous to elegiac, this collection asserts the ways in which even now, we strive to contain Whitmanic multitudes within the constantly shifting borders of self.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Poems hover in the liminal space between traditional and innovative form, locating there a way to entice the reader to enter while pushing the boundaries of what poetry can do. Amid this collection\u2019s formal inventions, poems offer a sustained reading comprehension exam that both encapsulates and interrogates the speaker, the culture, and even the reader. In the context of a nation hinging on the axes\u00a0of justice, freedom, self-expression, and tragedy, the voices in these poems reflect on how they both shape and are shaped by the invisible forces and inescapable influences that surround us.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

About the Author<\/h3>\n

Charles Jensen is the author of the poetry collections\u00a0<\/span>Nanopedia<\/span><\/em>\u00a0and The First Risk<\/em> and\u00a0<\/span>seven<\/span>\u00a0chapbooks of poetry and nonfiction. His poems have appeared In American Poetry Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner<\/em>, and elsewhere. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs designated him a Cultural Trailblazer, and he has received the Outwrite Nonfiction Chapbook Award,\u00a0<\/span>Z\u00f3calo<\/span>\u00a0Poetry Prize, Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. He directs the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Advanced praise for\u00a0Instructions between Takeoff and Landing<\/em><\/h3>\n

Charles Jensen\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Instructions Between Takeoff and Landing\u00a0<\/span><\/i>is a poetic primer for living through these recent years \u201cbloated with the arrogance of America.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0From the personal to the political and back (with a delightful Adrienne Rich-infused cento), Jensen\u2019s poems are elegiac, hilarious, and deadly serious. Formally inventive\u2014with a series of \u201cstory problems\u201d and quiz questions about you’ve just read\u2014Jensen provides an immersion experience, a delicately ironic jolt with each poem. \u201cDefine \u201cfuture.\u2019\u201d Then visit the \u201cMuseum of Past Wrongs.\u201d Follow his\u00a0<\/span>Instructions\u00a0<\/span><\/i>and you\u2019ll emerge wiser.<\/span>
\n<\/span>–Denise Duhamel<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the language of the survey, the memo, the instruction, and the quiz, clarity is of the utmost importance. In Charles Jensen\u2019s new collection, what is clear is the scope of Jensen\u2019s inventiveness and his acute sense of humor, all of which is honed to a razor-sharp tip. With deft lyric and rhetorical skill, the poems interrogate this American quotidian, urging readers to carefully understand the magnitude of what Jensen\u2019s poems ask because there is most certainly going to be an exam at the end. The poems prepare us for the moment when we are tested and when Jensen\u2019s searing blend of humor, inquiry, and speculation show us all the answers.<\/span>
\n<\/span>–Oliver de la Paz<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The collection opens with a dedication to the author\u2019s brothers. It says\u00a0<\/span>for my brothers<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span>Gary and Dennis sailing on ahead.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Readers journey through the immediacy of death and how one perseveres with the lived experience. At times, humorous and philosophical, the voice in these poems is self-aware and vulnerable.\u00a0<\/span>For a\u00a0time\u00a0I believe people could hear my thoughts. How else did they know my most private desires, the reluctance in my heart when I looked too long at a boy in my class?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Instructions Between Takeoff and Landing<\/span><\/i>\u00a0is Charles Jensen\u2019s most dynamic collection. Poems range in style from questionnaires, reading quizzes, and prose. We find the unexpected. Jensen\u2019s dexterity with form and imagination are carefully balanced. Though the voice in these poems is urgent, Jensen wants us to slow down and listen. He tells us:\u00a0<\/span>You\u2019ve come to worry about being lost the way I am lost. I have become a cautionary tale.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Jensen\u2019s poems are direct, and they address the value and complexity of lives lived in the world around us.<\/span>
\n<\/span>–Ruben Quesada<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reviews<\/h3>\n

“The playful manner Jensen offers his structures, set with wry humour, often belie some of the dark material he wrestles with throughout the collection, from Miranda Rights, the belief in the \u201crapture,\u201d to fear of death and of death itself.” —Rob McClennan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Charles Jensen<\/h4>\n

Size: 6 x 9<\/p>\n

Editor’s Choice<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5847,"template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[83887],"product_tag":[97659,98585,98586,98471,98588,9550,98583,98582,98473,98587,98584,98589,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-5815","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-akron-series-in-poetry","7":"product_tag-affordable-learning-initiative","8":"product_tag-death","9":"product_tag-dying","10":"product_tag-gender","11":"product_tag-gender-studies","12":"product_tag-humor","13":"product_tag-innovative-poetry","14":"product_tag-lgbtq-studies","15":"product_tag-lgbtqia","16":"product_tag-masculinity","17":"product_tag-midlife","18":"product_tag-philosophy","19":"product_tag-poetry","21":"first","22":"instock","23":"shipping-taxable","24":"product-type-simple"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/5815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=5815"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=5815"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=5815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}