The Gift That Arrives Broken - Softcover

Rich in sensory details, Jacqueline Berger s new poems present scenarios that invite us to think about their meaning and suggest ways we should think about them, see them afresh. The poems do all this effortlessly, much as a parable might, not offering simple prudential morality a la Aesop, but demanding reflection on the earthly role of human beings, on language, on randomness and purpose in the universe. Indirectly, in thoughtful, sometimes humorous, sometimes sardonic ways, they inculcate virtue without seeming to insist or dictate. Zara Raab, Colorado Review"

"Rich in sensory details, Jacqueline Berger's new poems present scenarios that invite us to think about their meaning and suggest ways we should think about them, see them afresh. The poems do all this effortlessly, much as a parable might, not offering simple prudential morality a la Aesop, but demanding reflection on the earthly role of human beings, on language, on randomness and purpose in the universe. Indirectly, in thoughtful, sometimes humorous, sometimes sardonic ways, they inculcate virtue without seeming to insist or dictate."--Zara Raab "Colorado Review"

Winner of the 2009 Autumn House Poetry Contest, selected by Alicia Ostriker. In Berger's third collection, she combines the philosophical with the everyday in order to examine a broken world.