Reviews
Local author Jeanne Blum Lesinski recently released her debut collection of poetry titled Tethers End through national publisher Shanti Arts, which contains an astonishing array of contemporary poems rendered through a variety of poetic styles that vividly tackle an equally broad array of subjects ranging from the sudden heart attack of a beloved parent, to the beauty and solace found in the splendor of nature, to a spaniel dog held back from its true nature by the desire for and distance of the object of its attention.
She likes to joke about her German maiden name Blum sounding like bloom, and since this collection compiles poems written over 40 years, she calls herself a super late bloomer. “Better late than never,” she says. ”Besides, sometimes it takes living a chunk of life to know what you want to say. And even more time to learn how and to have the courage to say it.” Read More…
Life at SVSU
Jeanne's academic journey commenced at DePauw University, where she pursued an undergraduate degree in French. After marrying and having children, she traversed the country while working in literary-focused roles, such as a librarian and a freelance writer. She even authored several books, including a best-selling juvenile biography of Bill Gates. Eventually, Jeanne returned to Michigan to earn her teaching degree at SVSU, where she obtained her teaching license in French and English. During her tenure at SVSU, Jeanne had the honor of having her poems featured in several issues of the Cardinal Sins. Read More…
Tether’s End Endorsements
“In Tethers End, Jeanne Blum Lesinski works a variety of poetic forms to tackle difficult subjects—the death of a child, the suicide of a teenager, the sudden heart attack of a beloved parent—while simultaneously reminding us of the presence of nature, the ‘almost imperceptible whirs of gulls’ wings.’ Here is her poignant observation in the midst of crisis: ‘A pair of rabbits frolics on the lawn near the hospital entrance.’ Consistently surprising us, she writes of love through the metaphor of a favorite cup of coffee. She traces psyche’s journey, observes the Amish in their rural community, and everywhere celebrates the caring of a parent for a child. Through it all, the poet’s humor prevails, as when a husband and wife agree that to accomplish the washing of windows, they may have to move to a new house. This is a collection that affirms the tenacity of human emotion, that refuses to deny its power, ultimately concluding that ‘history is the final proof.’”
—Carol Barrett, Ph.D., author of Calling in the Bones, Drawing Lessons, and Pansies
“Jeanne Blum Lesinski’s collection, Tethers End, is a study in writing contemporary poetry: free verse—sometimes sprawling delightfully in form or content; sometimes sculpturally shaped; some using traditional capitalization and punctuation, some adapting to the poem’s needs—prose poems, rhymed poems, formal poems. Like the proverbial kid in a penny candy store, I find it difficult to choose just one, in this case, poem or snippet. But the collection’s quasi-title poem, ‘Tether’s End’ (note the apostrophe), focuses on a spaniel held back from its true nature by the desire for and distance of the object of its attention and its tether—interestingly enough, a line that holds it back, similar in ways to a poetic line. What the collection’s title, Tethers End (without the apostrophe), might suggest, I’ll leave to individual readers. But the unflinching gaze of these forty poems, which could easily be photographs or sketches in their precision, zeroing in on their subject matter in the pristine language they use, makes me feel like that spaniel. Except these lines, like all good writing, have caused to me break free from the tethers of my day.”
—Antonio Vallone, publisher, MAMMOTH books; and poetry editor, Pennsylvania English
The neatly turned image in this book's quasi-title poem of a spaniel "roaming the boundaries of her domain" conveys the tensions that author Jeanne Lesinski explores. Covering a wide range of experience and emotion, she has produced a book of stylistically ambitious poems that are sharply observed, skillful in execution, and intelligent and generous in spirit.
—John Palen, author of Riding With the Diaspora, and Distant Music