Optic Nerve

“These are brave and intimate poems etched with breathtaking constraint in a calibrated free-fall through the separate terrains of explicit meaning, metaphor and photography with impeccable timing.”— Trisha Brown

“Janet Sternburg’s are indeed lyrics of “optic nerve” as well as of poetic tact and verbal finesse. These carefully wrought poems are the perfect analogues to Sternburg’s superb photographs: they are spare and direct yet oddly mysterious, and their everyday language is charged with emotion, energy, and good humor. Whether practicing ekphrasis, as in “Natura Morta” or reanimating the love lyric and memory poem, Sternburg maintains an exquisite poise. This is, in the true sense of the term, a lovely book.”— Marjorie Perloff