I was listening to one of my favorite radio programs, NPR’s A Way with Words, and was introduced to a new (to me) poet, Jessica Goodfellow. I looked her up and found links to quite a few of her poems on her site and also landed on a review of her latest book, Mendaleev’s Mandala, in the The Japan Times which served to whet my appetite for more.

Jessica Goodfellow is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but lives in Japan now with her husband and sons.  Her first book of poetry, The Insomniac’s Weather Report (three candles press), won the Three Candles Press First Book Prize, and was reissued by Isobar Press in 2014. Her newest book Mendeleev’s Mandala is available from Mayapple Press (2015). She is also the author of a poetry chapbook, A Pilgrim’s Guide to Chaos in the Heartland (Concerete Wolf, 2006), winner of the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Competition. Her work has appeared in the anthology Best New Poets 2006, on the website Verse Daily, and has been featured by Garrison Keillor on NPR”s “The Writer’s Almanac.” Other honors include: the Chad Walsh Poetry Prize, the Linda Julian Essay Award, and the Sue Lile Inman Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Motionpoems Season 6.  [Adapted from Jessica’s website]

In the video below, Jessica Goodfellow discusses sound (onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, and homophones) as one possible means of connecting with meaning and with the unconscious, offering her own Chance of Precipitation and Crows, Reckoning as examples. Listen! Learn! Enjoy!

If you are viewing this post via email, you’ll likely need to click through to the site to get access to the video.

Read:
Chance of Percipitation (scroll to page 19)
Crows, Reckoning

© portrait, Jessica Goodfellow