Jumping the Line

Poetry. In JUMPING THE LINE, Ted Greenwald has created an ingeniously alluring structure. Five of the central lines of the poem are identical: the 11th and 13th, 12th and 14th, 15th and 16th, 17th and 20th, and 18th and 19th. The gentle but persistent permutation and context-shifting of this 'ghostly sewing' create 'machine songs' that are semantically open, experimentally spacious, and thematically self-reflective. The rich, enfolding calm of these meditative poems is a pleasure -- Charles Bernstein.