Humming At The Dinner Table

“In Joanne Esser’s new collection, she says, it is only/your restless self, longing to cross the border and her restless self guides us through this book. She takes the deep dive into memory, and even when she says, memory is an undependable friend, we don’t really believe her. These poems take us, with great thoughtfulness, with compelling images, to portraits of family, to early memories, to landscapes that have imprinted on the poet’s soul. I think this collection asks us to consider what we are responsible for—what memories, what truths to tell, what anguish to reveal. And, what joy. Moments of great sorrow, great beauty, fears, and letting go of fears—this book gives us all this—a book by a poet who has thought hard about what it means to live in a complicated world, remember that world, and write it down.”
–Deborah Keenan, author of ten collections of poetry, and a book of writing ideas, from tiger to prayer.

“Well-crafted poems with an ache underneath. Joanne Esser’s work, with its wide range of subjects, shows that nearly anything can launch a fine poet into a poem. Her poetic voice, and the lovely recurring image of sunlight, hold the book together. Read it.”
–Mary Jean Port, teacher at The Loft Literary Center and author of The Truth About Water

“At its deepest level, poetry accomplishes what might be called the ‘work of being’ and Humming At The Dinner Table does just that. In poem after poem, Joanne Esser makes room for the richness of life, its complexity, its joys and griefs. The poems are grounded in moments that shine with the power of icons and cast their light on people, places, and moments that might otherwise have been lost to time. I love the way this book calls out to its readers, its unpretentious wisdom and its fierce attention to the telling detail.”
–Jim Moore, the author most recently of Underground: New and Selected Poems

Joanne Esser writes poetry and nonfiction in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has also been a teacher of young children for over thirty years. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University and published a chapbook of poems, I Have Always Wanted Lightning, with Finishing Line Press in 2012. Her poems appear in Into the Void, Water Stone Review, The Stillwater Review, Nostos, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Gyroscope Review, Miramar and many other journals.