Life of the Mind

Julia Caroline Knowlton's poems are short, sharp, and teeming with knowledge of heartbreak and reinventions. From the sticky heat of Georgia to the cool charm of Paris, this clutch of poems comes to terms with absence and takes us on a journey that reawakens desire.

-Collin Kelley, Wonder & Wreckage: New & Selected Poems

Julia Knowlton's poetry both celebrates the senses and champions the mind. One responds to her poems viscerally, for they are truly embodied, yet one returns to the verses to absorb their underlying meaning. Knowlton's poems are imbued with an unobtrusive self-knowledge and wry sense of humor. From the "broken stone of love and keys of memory made out of cloud" to the marble metamorphosis conjured in Eternal Idol, these poems edify, enrich, and unleash the imagination of the reader.

-Donna Sadler, Professor Emerita of Art History, Agnes Scott College Author of the forthcoming book The Nun's Cell: Mirror, Memoir, and Metaphor in Convent Art

In Life of the Mind Julia Caroline Knowlton's short, lyric, painterly poems are full of elegant, tart (and smart) observations like this: "There is no better color than everyone falling silent." In the delicious "dark pink air of Paris," she shares her love of France, confiding "I bring my pain here, to feel it." Each of us has a particular "here" where we bring our pain. The speaker in this work strips down to her disposition: "I am spare and strange." This is not only a cool self-appraisal, but also the emotional scaffolding these poems are built on. Knowlton's poems are brief, worldly, intriguing, and full of imaginative leaps that linger. These poems [are] a distinct pleasure to discover.

-Elaine Sexton, author of Drive and Prospect/Refuge