Geography of the Possible

poetry by Susan Jackson

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Geography of the Possible is a feast of the imagination. In the intimacy of the page, Jackson asks the reader to imagine what could be, what is possible . . . these poems tell us the world is richer, more profound than we might have imagined. Holy moments are found rooted in the ordinary. The poet’s deep relationship with nature and memory lead us to the connectedness of all things, joy and sorrow, loss and discovery, creativity as a font of solace and wonder.

POETRY / General

ISBN: 978-1-971191-09-6 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

LCCN: 2026937305

78 pages

Author Biography

Susan Jackson was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the family’s native Connecticut. She lived in France, Belgium, Portugal, and Holland before settling in New Jersey where she practiced a number of healing modalities, including Jin Shin Jyutsu and Nondual healing. She is the author of two previous poetry collections, Through a Gate of Trees and In the River of Songs, as well as the chapbook All the Light in Between. Jackson’s poems have been published in literary journals including Tiferet, Lily Poetry Review, Pensive, and others. She and her husband, John, are the parents of four grown children and now live in Teton County, Wyoming. Find her on Instagram at susanjacksonpoet.

Endorsements

“Susan Jackson’s Geography of the Possible explores the geography of grief, loss, and small moments, while always mapping toward joy, drawing us into being like the fox who ‘comes and goes freely, will take the whole world in her mouth / to chew the juiciness without worrying what drips or spills.’ It’s a book about patience—as Jackson writes, ‘the garden will wait for you forever,’— and about the power of caring through illness, war, death, and all that feels unbearable. Through her attention to detail, Jackson shows us stars ‘poured out of the sky / onto the surface of the water / there and there and there,’ while reminding us of the preciousness of each moment her poems illuminate. She writes, ‘I did not realize how easily all is lost. / Forgive me.’ This brave and tender book beautifully captures the precocity we all must face, while reminding us of the beauty we can also find, ultimately celebrating the ‘inextinguishable light’ that lives in us all.”
—Ruth Dickey, Executive Director, National Book Foundation

“In this gorgeous collection, Susan Jackson gives us many gifts: resilience, return, and presence. These poems radiate wisdom and wonder, as Jackson opens us a ‘chapel of hours’ and ‘a path beneath time.’ We discover the ‘invisible patience of poems’ and encounter the poet’s ancestors; we see glints of enlightenment, forests, beaches, and moonlight. The poet reminds us to ‘take our turn with courage’ and of our ‘work to repair the world.’ If I were to select one book of poems for solace in the face of death, this would be the book I would choose.”
—Deborah Leipziger, author of Story & Bone

“With her imaginative use of language and exquisite understanding of the heart, Susan Jackson here gifts us with another gem of a collection. She is adept as she plays with time, inviting the reader into holy, abundant moments of now through such meticulous observations of the curls of carrot skin, eggshells, apple blossoms, perfectly ground coffee beans, five strawberries on a plate. These poems tackle memory and loss, female identity and experience, nature as metaphor for emotion, the passing of time and of love from generation to generation. Nature intrigues this poet, and throughout these pages she shares its bounty of surprise and delight with the reader as owl, fox, fish appear. Both meditative and hopeful, Geography of the Possible does not shy away from illness, death, and loss, yet its ultimate mapping is one of quiet strength and grace.”
—Donna Baier Stein, author of The Silver Baron’s Wife and founder/publisher of Tiferet Journal

“Susan Jackson’s newest collection of poems resonates with my heart and mind simultaneously. She makes me into a poet by opening the door to the mystery of her poems and invites me to be in conversation and deep listening with the world. Even in our precarious times Jackson finds pathways through uncertainty. She doesn’t erase the pain of the world. She encourages the reader to find the ‘path beneath time,’ to wonder, to ask existential questions, deepen into the many possibilities in front of us, and to make a whole out of the simple and the shattering. And finally to find the earth beneath our feet where ‘roots sew themselves together’ even for people who have lost their connection to nature. Jackson reminds us that we can count on the earth. We can let questions arise: How can I be a holy woman? What is my solitude like? Who am I after reading these poems? How can I walk through sorrow and be unafraid of death? Ask the fox who meanders through this collection.”
—Raechel Bratnick, author of Awakening the Dreamer and The Likelihood of Dawn

“What a joy to discover and savor the luminous poetry of Susan Jackson. In her extraordinary new book, Geography of the Possible, Jackson guides her readers masterfully across vast landscapes—both inward and outward, domestic and global—from her window to her kitchen and garden and the woods beyond; from the Bay of Banderas in Mexico to the ‘solitude of mountains’ in the American West; from Portugal during a coup d’etat to the realms of memory and eternity, where her ancestors (especially women) provide comfort, power, and inspiration. ‘It’s just mapping/infinity really,’ she tells us, and like the wild animals she meets in astonishing moments of ‘I and Thou’ communion, she invites the reader to join her as ‘an explorer in places / beyond the land of understanding.’ Jackson offers her readers powerful and necessary words of encouragement: ‘let me not languish. Let me persevere…hold fast, reach and marvel…let the state of wonder carry me.’ In the darkness, she invites us to breathe in the night air, recalling a ‘dream a woman is telling me / the story of an inextinguishable light that lives inside of everyone.’”
—Alexander Levering Kern, author of What an Island Knows: Poems; founding editor of Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts; executive director of the Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service, Northeastern University

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