Summary (also available by PDF flier): Continuing the saga initiated with her prior collection Life After Death, Jane Rohrer’s later poetry records her journey from a cloistered upbringing among conservative Mennonites and Church of the Brethren adherents to going “on the road, collecting places,” as her title poem “Acquiring Land” puts it. As her life expanded from roots in Virginia through marrying painter Warren Rohrer and raising sons in suburban Philadelphia to launching a late but flourishing writing career in the 1970s, Rohrer became an accomplished poet. 

Of Life After Death (Sheep Meadow Press, 2002) Stephen Berg said, “Her idiom is so original, so plain, so authentic, it easily might be missed in the current noisy welter of media hype and inflated poetry. Its skill is absolute honesty, line after line set down because it must be.”

But if Rohrer “came late to poetry” says DreamSeeker Poetry Series editor Jeff Gundy, “there is nothing belated about her marvelous new collection. These alert, inventive, expansive poems travel widely—into her memory and family history, and around the world—constantly offering up bold, moving insights and turns of phrase.”

Acquiring Land editor Julia Kasdorf Spicher reports that “The clarity of statement in the poems collected here is hard won and contains traces of the distance she’s come and all she’s brought with her to arrive at this brave voice.” —From the Introduction

Market: Anyone interested in poetry that, as Rohrer’s poem “Story” describes it, invite us to ”recognize ourselves / as we are, everywhere at once.”

Shelving: Poetry; Anabaptist-Mennonite literature. BISAC: Poetry; RTM: 640 Poetry

The Author: Born in Broadway, Virginia, as Martha Jane Turner, to a conservative Mennonite farmer and horse breeder and a Church of the Brethren mother, Jane Rohrer met her husband Warren Rohrer when they were 1940s students at Eastern Mennonite College. During the 1950s, as Warren became a painter, they raised two sons in suburban Philadelphia. Jane’s 1970s launch  into writing poetry catalyzed a late but flourishing career. Her 2002 poetry volume Life After Death (Sheep Meadow Press) prompted Theodore Weiss to ask, “Original, wonderful combination of simple direct language and subtle surreal turns of mind  . . . a full-fledged poet . . . where has she been all this time?”

Quote: "Sixty years ago, my fiancé’s parents / Were relieved he would marry a girl / Whose father owned a thousand acres. / They had their standards. / I see the Shenandoah now / Like a World War II movie, sepia toned, / And the river flows by the house someone owns. . . . / My mind is filled today / With a whiff of Lisbon in the rain.” —Jane Rohrer, excerpted from the title poem, “Acquiring Land”

Publisher: Cascadia Publishing House LLC
Imprint: DreamSeeker Books
Copublisher: None
Publication date: May 2020
Approximate Pages: 54
Tentative Format: 6 x 9" trade paper
Prices: $12.95 US/Can. ISBN 13: 978-1-68027-016-7  ISBN 13: 1-68027-016-8