Salvific Fourteeners: A Poem Is Not a Poem Until the Poet Is Healed

Here is a poet who believes poetry should speak of everyday life, not to other poets but to a broad swath of humankind. Most of all, therefore, Jacobs has striven for accessibility. The attention span of the modern person is short, Jacobs believes poems should be similarly short. Each poem, therefore, consists of fourteen lines, but few are in classic sonnet form. They are almost all written in blank verse in a language that is sophisticated but not murky. The themes are the themes of human life, its mystery and its beauty and its brevity. Love, wonder, anger and revulsion are all represented, never in bawdy language but nevertheless explicitly. The poet is more than eighty years old. The poems, therefore, often plumb memory and revisit old loves and former friends and places. The poet loves life but is unafraid of death.

Lloyd A. Jacobs, M.D.: After undergraduate study at Miami University of Ohio, Dr. Jacobs attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He practiced vascular surgery for many years, ultimately becoming Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan. He was appointed President of the Medical College of Ohio in 2003 and became President of the combined institution when the Medical College merged into the University of Toledo. He served in this role until 2015. Jacobs grew up in the strictest environment and in the belief system of Calvinism. This experience has shaped his life. His writing-putatively about nature and time's passage-reflects this upbringing.