Description

University of Nebraska Press, paperback

Publication Date: September 1, 2023

Publisher Marketing: Let Our Bodies Change the Subject is a poetry collection that dives headlong into the terrifying, wondrous, sleep-deprived existence of being a parent in twenty-first-century America. In clear, dynamic verses that disarm then strike, Jared Harl investigates our days through the keyhole of domesticity, through personal lyrics and cultural reckonings. Whether taking a family trip to Coney Island, donating blood in a synagogue basement, or simply showing his son snowflakes on Inauguration morning, Harl guides us toward moments of intimacy and understanding, humor and grief. “I will try,” he admits, “to be better than myself, which is all/I’ve ever wanted and everything I need.” Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Let Our Bodies Change the Subject is a secular prayer. Hoping against hope, Harl works to reconcile feelings of luck and loss, of living for joy while fearing the worst.