A search for language and meaning after unspeakable loss

Vanitas (cloth)

Poems

Jane McKinley, with introduction by Robert A. Fink

vanitas: A still-life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre incorporating symbols of mortality or mutability. —The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary

Jane McKinley weaves together memories, myths, and interior worlds to create a vanitas of her own. With an oboist's mastery of rhythm and form and a painterly eye for detail, the poet retraces scenes from her childhood, allowing us to witness its shattering conclusion: the death of a beloved sister and its silent aftershocks.

In this very human book, McKinley writes of the tragic childhood loss of a sister, the irrevocable turning point—evoking the search for threads of prophecy, patterns of meaning. In a sure voice with lovely sound, McKinley’s narratives are formal and evocative in their movement, asking: What does it mean to be whole? —Jan Beatty, author of Red Sugar

This haunting and heartening debut is abundant proof of the alchemy by which tragic events, deeply felt, open doors of perception—to the wonder and terrors of everyday glimpses and to an artist’s richly textured dream life. . . . Each chiseled lyric stands alone, charged with musicality, visceral imagery, and the beauty of Old Master light. —Elizabeth Hun Schmidt, editor, The Poets Laureate Anthology

Jane McKinley’s first book of poems shines forth with intelligence and passion. She writes of her awakening to words and music in a way that awakens us all, her memories ours. She draws us into her world, and we are with her all the way. —Grace Schulman, author of The Broken String

The poems of Vanitas shape a landscape of drama and dream, where past and present intersect and converse, where interrupted lives insist upon completion. McKinley’s poems will pull you in, and leave you breathless. —Ann Townsend, author of The Coronary Garden

Jane McKinley is a professional oboist and artistic director of the Dryden Ensemble, a Baroque chamber music group based in Princeton, New Jersey. Her poems have appeared in the Georgia Review, the Southern Poetry Review, and on Poetry Daily. Her sonnet “Mud Season” won the 2008 Patricia Dobler Award from Carlow University. She lives in Hopewell, New Jersey.

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