I Know About These Things

The meaning of our lives may occur to us through memory, sensory snapshots of significant moments: a mattress upended by the curb, hair lost through chemotherapy caught in a brush, the light fragrance of lavender powder on a handkerchief. In "I Know These Things" award-winning poet Cynthia Jacobi chronicles scenes from her own life, from childhood to an imagined old age, in subtle and moving poems that capture these memorial moments. Every woman will recognize many of these episodes-a girl becoming a woman, the onset of passionate love, disruptive and disrupted relationships, failings of the body's health, loss of loved ones, profound observations about the nature of things through connections discovered in gardening, art and writing, and received cultural "wisdom" now re-examined. Male readers will find insight into the effect of being a woman on experience and perceptions of reality. As award winning poet Penelope Scambly Schott has said, "When Cynthia Jacobi claims 'I Know about These Things, ' I believe her. This compelling collection of personal poems starts with childhood and moves forward to imagining very old age.... You will enjoy spending time with this caring and observant poet."