Jalousie - by Allyson Paty (Paperback)

About the Book

"The "I-centered," first person, yet experimental poems in Jalousie explore the ways in which expression of the deeply personal experience is both dictated to and altered by rigid societal expectations. The speaker of these highly personal poems can't help but view language as a historical artifact, the DNA of past worlds, as these poems delve into the complexities of sorting out one's individual identity amid broader cultural contexts. Paty's poems attempt to connect the personal, private, intimate persona with elements that are always external--external not only to this poet but to every person. These poems seek to capture fleeting moments of personal connection despite the impossibility of language, the societal dictates of gender roles, the pressures of making a living, the inexorable march of time, and the bewildering strangeness of architectural spaces. At the heart of this collection is "Premise," an extensive poem that weaves in detours through the history of New York City, themes of discard, references to Bruegel's "Wedding Dance," and discussions on representation and memory"--

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2023 Berkshire Prize for a First or Second Book of Poetry, Jalousie works toward a poetics of analysis.

The "I-centered," first person, yet experimental poems in Jalousie explore the ways in which expression of the deeply personal experience is both dictated to and altered by rigid societal expectations. The speaker of these highly personal poems can't help but view language as a historical artifact, the DNA of past worlds, as these poems delve into the complexities of sorting out one's individual identity amid broader cultural contexts. Paty's poems attempt to connect the personal, private, intimate persona with elements that are always external--external not only to this poet but to every person.

These poems seek to capture fleeting moments of personal connection despite the impossibility of language, the societal dictates of gender roles, the pressures of making a living, the inexorable march of time, and the bewildering strangeness of architectural spaces. At the heart of this collection is "Premise," an extensive poem that weaves in detours through the history of New York City, themes of discard, references to Bruegel's "Wedding Dance," and discussions on representation and memory. The book also contains three full-color illustrations which augment the poet's themes and concerns.

Review Quotes

"A jalousie is described as a type of window treatment, like a cross between blinds and a curtain. Something to stand behind and be obscured by while observing the world. These days, when shameless exhibitions of power and ignorance are stealing much, it is easy to think that a quiet poet opening the window on a subtle consciousness doesn't ask much of us. We are not starting a revolution or shouting down authoritarian overreach through this poetry. Instead we are breaking into an apartment of inner awareness. . . . Jalousie pulls us through lyric absences. . . . These poems manage to tilt the blinds to reveal the undressed mind, with interior reflections melding with those outside."-- "CALYX"

"Stunning. . . [Paty's] poems are smart, and observational, wise and tender."-- "rob mclennan's blog"

"In her new book of poems, Jalousie, Allyson Paty athletically crashes the present moment back through the diagonals of history. Through luminous perceptual collaging, the sounds in her dreams, her dailiness, and the wrath of the gods combine in a poetic logic that is both irrefutable and moving."-- "Annie Parson"

"The title of this stunning collection refers to a window treatment which has rows of angled slats, like blinds or shutters, and Allyson Paty's disarming lyric exemplifies a deliciously sharp perspective which at times ranges from being seen literally through partially-opened slats, the world at a slant, to confronting the mediations of how we tender our communications, representations of self, labor, and love. These are poems reminiscent of the cutting lines of Elaine Kahn and Elisa Gabbert, but these poems are uniquely their own.

Here, where "vision began / and ended was medias res," Jalousie may feel like mid-stream meditations but are in fact wholistic wrestlings with what it means to live and work in today's metropolis: subjects tackled are: technology (phones, computers), capitalism, being an object of the state, but also the leisure of "watching Blow Up" on the sofa with "Krasdale Puffed Rice with Real Cocoa" in hand. At its core, these poems explore "the condition of place / inside a body," the body within an urban place, and also the body cognizant of contextual history.

The speaker of the poem "In Medias Res," knows to "shut [their] eyes / to receive," which is to say, to listen to one's surroundings in order to catch details the eye often misses. Allyson Paty understands that "to see / is to have at a distance // what populates vision" and the "distance" in their case is a view filtered as if through shutters-hidden, protected, but because there is "not quite so much sun," is able to receive much more of scene. And by the final line in this fine collection, the poet shares what we've been privy to all along, that is, that they do, quite radiantly, "resolve the view, unstriped and entire."
-- "Diana Khoi Nguyen, author of Root Fractures"

"To read these poems is to feel transfigured in the splinters of a strobe light: Phone scrolling, the dishes, street protest, work functions -- "skin L E A K S / the world comes I N" -- we find ourselves in a strange choreography, one it turns out we've been performing all along. Science tells us the present lasts but three seconds. "That means that every three seconds, we produce ourselves again as strangers." (Jenny Erpenbeck) Paty is the poet of this ongoingness as acute disequilibrium."-- "Lisa Hsaio Chen, author of Activities of Daily Living"

About the Author

Allyson Paty is the author of the chapbooks Five O'Clock on the Shore, Score Poems, and The Further Away. Recent publications include poems in Denver Quarterly's FIVES, Poetry, The Recluce, Yale Review, and nonfiction in The Baffler. A 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry and a participant in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's 2017-18 Workspace Program, Paty is co-founding editor of Singing Saw Press, works at NYU Gallatin, and photographs her garbage @trash_days on Instagram.