Going to Sing

89-page paperback / 5.5" x 8.5" / ISBN 9781589882232
Publication Date: 4/13/2027 (available for preorder)

“[O]ne of the most thoughtful and adroit poets writing these days.”
—The Georgia Review

In his thirteenth poetry collection, Going to Sing, Mark Jarman writes about growing up on the shore of the Pacific and also the North Sea, being formed by the faith of his family and trying to embody and explain that faith to others. Many of his poems are investigations of character in classical and literary figures (the Virgin Mary and Clytemnestra, C. S. Lewis and the Apostles); mythical and imaginary ones (the Minotaur, a mermaid); and real and contemporary figures (the reader trying to make sense of a poem, a widow mowing her lawn, the author's father helping his mother with a biology class). The poems in Going to Sing are lyrical expressions about the capacity of poetry to sing in many different ways, on many different subjects.

The breaking surf and the owl in the egg, both are going to sing.
March lets itself out the back and hunts for a bell to ring.

PRAISE FOR MARK JARMAN'S POETRY AND PROSE:

“These sensitive and meditative poems offer up new ways to consider the passage of time.”
—Publishers Weekly on Zeno's Eternity

“In Mark Jarman's considerable new collection ...[the poems] very often trace similar paths of thought and experience toward freedom, light, truth, and love.”
—Booklist (starred review) on The Heronry

“On page after page, Jarman takes quotidian diurnal light and transforms it into solar energy.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books on Dailiness

“His specific ability to help the reader understand why a poem or even a particular word works is extraordinary.”
―ZYZZYVA on Dailiness

“I admire the way Mark Jarman’s poetry worries spiritual concerns while remaining rooted in the everyday.”
—Library Journal on Bone Fires

“While most of the poems explore faith in its many manifestations, there is something here transcendent that speaks to everyone. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal on Epistles

Mark Jarman is the author of twelve books of poetry, including The Heronry and Zeno's Eternity (Paul Dry Books, 2023). He has also published five books of essays and reviews, including Dailiness (Paul Dry Books, 2020), and won numerous awards for his poetry. He is Centennial Professor of English, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University, and he lives in Los Angeles.