Description: "Harbinger" invokes history (such as the Salem witch trials), pop culture, the urban and natural world, and domesticity. These poems-one of which has been nominated for Best of the Net 2019-explore mental health and the power of fear.
Brief description: Jackie Sherbow is a writer and editor living in Queens, NY. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Sierra Nevada Review, Gold Wake Live, Coffin Bell, Luna Luna, Bad Pony, Day One, and elsewhere, and have been part of the Emotive Fruition performance series. She works as an editor for two leading mystery-fiction magazines as well as Newtown Literary-the literary journal dedicated to the borough of Queens. She can be found at www.jackiesherbow.com and @j_sherbow on Twitter.
Review Quotes:
"I'm not a believer / but I can write about the devil," Jackie Sherbow declares in her debut chapbook, Harbinger. In these keenly observed poems, both wonder and fear guide the speaker as she explores history, domesticity, mental illness, and religion. From the Salem witch trials to the shores of the Long Island Sound, from Queens diners to the dreams of California, Sherbow's journeying is intellectually generous and emotionally engaging. I love this collection.
--Monica Wendel, author of No Apocalypse (Georgetown Review Press, 2013) and English Kills (Autumn House Press, 2016)
Jackie Sherbow's Harbinger is a bold debut that flirts with fabulism while addressing womanhood in America through the lens of witchcraft. Her prose is lovely, and her surprising imaginative leaps pull from the mundane world transformations, witches and their familiars, birds' feet soup, murder trials, beach quartz, and collected talismans from childhood and the present. Her poems rest on objects and people and moments until they become enchanted. And readers too will be enchanted by both the dangers and delights of the world Sherbow creates within these pages.
--Emily Hockaday, author of Space on Earth (Grey Book Press, 2019) and What We Love and Will Not Give Up (Dancing Girl Press, 2014)