The Declarable Future

"I can't remember a recent book so inhabited by a spirit of unease about where we find ourselves now. 'Always in search of the voices,' she writes, and I can feel Jennifer Boyden probing for a way to give shape, less to a catalog of our social and spiritual predicaments than the mood of our times. This is a wise book by a talented poet." Bob Hicok, author of The Legend of Light

"From the crystal doorknob transmitters that open The Declarable Future to the last will of the lost man that closes it, I was utterly captivated by the power of Jennifer Boyden's parallel world—a timely, disquieting parable for the broken one in which we live. Her lost man, like Z. Herbert's Mr. Cogito, becomes an alter ego who inhabits and interprets our current predicament. Her colloquial language is lucid, metaphorically inventive, constantly surprising—a rare blend of the piquant and the quietly tragic." Eleanor Wilner, Warren Wilson College

"Here recent scientific breakthroughs collide with intimate family life, ethereality with the quotidian, and, when we least expect it, the theoretical plane drops off suddenly into the abyss of the too, too real. In these poems of pith and sizzle, 'Love [is] finding fleas in the fur of our sisters.' Sisters, you may believe it." Nance Van Winckel, author of No Starling

“The Declarable Future makes large claims for poetry itself as a vital cultural force for navigating our way out of the dangerous straits of the postmodern condition. . . . Boyden’s poems, with their gorgeous language, their parabolic narratives and bold associative leaps, are ‘thinking poems.’” Headlandia

“The Declarable Future interrogates rather than placates, and in doing so, the book ultimately values wonder over certainty. If readers are able to suspend their disbelief . . . they will be rewarded with a book that encourages them to reconnect with others in the face of uncertainty.” Orion Magazine 

“It seems fair to call The Declarable Future . . . an amazing book, the kind of book that must be read, not just by other poets but by everyone. . . . It is the sort of poetry that reminds us that language is vital and that we can and should use words to investigate what it means to be a human citizen of the world.” The Rumpus

“Boyden’s inventive details and rich imagery establish an honesty and tenderness that persistently seeks—and often achieves—moments of connection. It’s this tender, but sharp voice that gives dignity to suffering and ultimately makes this book so accessible and compelling.” Ploughshares Literary Magazine

“In a clear, muscular language loaded with precise revealing metaphor, Jennifer Boyden delivers a world. These are poems of a mature poet deeply engaged with her environment, demonstrating again and again the power of language to surprise and delight in moments of true insight.”—Sam Hamill

The poems in this book inhabit a world uneasily familiar and promising, but from the distance of a few possibilities into the future. In this collection of sharp, hallucinatory, and often darkly humorous poems, a lost man wanders among the towns of people who can't remember what they named the children, how to find each others' porches, or whether their buildings are still intact. That's why they need the person with the loupe. Among the poems where doorknobs emit the daily news, stone angels fall from the sky, and the floating world's harvest is whatever swims too close, the person with the loupe steadfastly verifies only what can be measured, while the lost man is witness to the unquantifiable and the limitless. And throughout, precise and observant language leads us expertly into the gorgeous, precarious wilderness of The Declarable Future.

Jennifer Boyden’s first book, The Mouths of Grazing Things, won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 2010. Her work has appeared in Folio, Orion, Gettysburg Review, and The Beloit Poetry Journal, among others. She is a recipient of a PEN Northwest Wilderness Writing Residency and lives on the Oregon coast.

Acknowledgments   1. You Might Have Mentioned How the Doorknobs Worked Small Gifts Are Thoughtful, but Require Acceptance of the World's Dismantlement Night Pitch The Giant The Misunderstanding of Wool For the Church Singers on Howard and Juniper They Have a Point The Lost Man Meets the Giant Each Answer Addresses the Previous Answer Like a Frequency, Like Looking Right at It The Body, Being Mostly Water The Declarable Future   2. David on the Phone The Book of Various Studies The Person with the Loupe It's Only a Little Like You May Have Heard About Linear On Which the Loupe Is Found Adequate Bad Advice The Lost Man Meets the Person with the Loupe At the Weapon Show As If I Hadn't Worn It Quite Enough, Time Tattoos My Arms and Face The Lost Man Thanks the Curtains   3. Which Particle the Particle   4. The Hearings In This Place, Which We Have Been The Lost Man Interprets a Code Counting the Dead The Lost Man with Dust The Lost Man Disagrees with the Clouds Out of Principle The Magician The Person with the Loupe Confirms the Children Low Rent In the Hotel of Desire's Receipt Impossible to Know Which Ring the Ring of the Answer The Lost Man Leaves a Will