The Only Thing That Matters

Poetry, Syracuse University Press, 2013

This is an important work, offering glimpses of what might be possible —if only the love, faith, and compassion that sustain us could themselves be sustained.

“By applying a complex algorithm to fellow poet Fanny Howe’s work, Kim Jensen creates poems that honor Howe’s directive to reinstate words in the world by “…liturgy or random encounters.” Like the medieval women writers who included passages from other women authors in their own works, Jensen’s homage results in poetry as a form of hospitality, a way of being truly open to the world. “Ordinary speech seems like a sin to me,” writes Jensen, so she gifts us with this miraculous celebration of all that is both spiritual and worldly.”–Tina Darragh, author of Striking Resemblance

“In this lucid collection, Kim Jensen moves between intimate address and an engagement with the world, connecting perception with perception with subtlety and distinction. Jensen’s deftness in creating her own ‘poetic logic’ offers pleasing jolts of surprise in a conceptual project that is original and compelling.” —Elizabeth Robinson, author of The Orphan and Its Relations