- Authors
Alice Jones
A poet, physician, psychoanalyst and open water swimmer, Alice Jones is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Verse, and Best American Poetry. She has been awarded fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the NEA, and other literary prizes.
Praise for Cadence of Vanishing
Alice Jones’s Cadence of Vanishing is a meditative memoir in the form of diary entries in which many of the passages have the delicate feel of poetry. This is a penetrating exploration of the inner life of a poet through perceptive observations of the ordinary, reminiscent of Lydia Davis. It is an experience to be savored.
A mesmerizing blend of memory, imagination, adventure, poetry, and, yes, medicine, this remarkable book takes us to intriguing geo-cultural terrains and introduces us to many endearing characters as they traverse through life, illness, old age, and death. In both its organization and language, the discourse is simultaneously earthy and erudite, sparse and stylish, natural and poetic. Short quotes from world literature, the author's own poems, a few photographs, and psychoanalytic insights are sprinkled throughout the book and make its reading a sensually sumptuous experience. Jones's book depicts memoir writing at its poignant and literary best!
As it happens I began reading this memoir on Veterans Day, on the official Monday holiday that now obscures the memories themselves — painful events replaced by sales and ceremonies. What Alice Jones has to offer through this work is a searing, searching memorializing, informed by professional medical competence and further formed by her poet’s ear and eye and nerve. This entire document is a faceted poem consisting of physical and emotional events adding up to a life lived fully consciously, fully aware of oblivion awaiting us but a living determination to hold onto the knowledge and even wisdom also lying in wait.
