Blue Sonoma

A wise and embodied collection of dreamscapes, sutras and prayer poems from a writer at her peak.

In Blue Sonoma, award-winning poet Jane Munro draws on her well-honed talents to address what Eliot called “the gifts reserved for age.” A partner’s crossing into Alzheimer’s is at the heart of this book, and his “battered blue Sonoma” is an evocation of numerous other crossings: between empirical reportage and meditative apprehension, dreaming and wakefulness, Eastern and Western poetic traditions. Rich in both pathos and sharp shards of insight, Munro’s wisdom here is deeply embedded, shot through with moments of wit and candour. In the tradition of Taoist poets like Wang Wei and Po-Chu-i, her sixth and best book opens a wide poetic space, and renders difficult conditions with the lightest of touches.

As if “a voice spoke her name and woke her,” Jane Munro’s new poems are openhearted, yet quick and taut, with a playful – even biting – wit. How can Blue Sonoma be so elegant, so apparently simple, when each poem is a tinderbox? — Anne Simpson

These are delicate, polished poems—poems of few words—and while a fast reader could tear through Blue Sonoma in a half-hour that would be doing a grave disservice to Munro’s craft. The second half of the book, about her partner’s dementia, is so devastating because it is so beautiful.
— David Starkey, former Santa Barbara poet laureate

“Though inspired by her experiences, the poems were meant to speak to something more. Munro says … “I was interested in dementia as a metaphor … for human relations with Earth.”
— Mike Landry (Telegraph-Journal, Salon Focus)