chax press

BEGIN AT ONCE
Beth Joselow
ISBN 978-0-925904-65-2
Poetry
110 pages

Reviews

The poems in Begin at Once are truly investigations, never simply statements of things the poet already claims to know. They wander– sometimes lightly, sometimes darkly, sometimes with a quiet but sharp irony, but always generously– over all sorts of contrasting subjects with a startling insight that traces the swift and shocking changes of a life lived in a world that’s genuinely right here, right now. Beth Joselow’s poems discover, and uncover, keen truths that always surprise and unsettle and make us think again about things we believed we understood.There’s real wisdom in Begin At Once, and the world sure does need more of that.
— Mark Wallace

Joselow’s poems are “tender numbers” for “people who used to be hungry”. We’ve been chowing down on the drill, organizing our lives around days of rain/bells with colors/gears without mesh until we experience more numbers/further use as “…elusive optimism/skin of ice…” So how do we unsettle the daily bout? Joselow suggests we take each poem as “one more time” to be “simply there” “In support of ________” …”To contain _______” so that we have some unslotted space to “sit down now, begin at once.”
— Tina Darragh

Begin at Once is a terrific collection because Beth Joselow is a writer with a great gift, but it’s also a tease. Because this is a book, all 104 pages of it, that leaves you wanting to read so very much more.
-- Ron Silliman

Beth Joselow has been writing poems all her life. She has been publishing poetry, prose and plays since her early twenties, and her work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She often has worked with artists and musicians. Three of her poems were composed into a song-cycle by Janet Peachy. Her collaboration on an artists book with the Russian artist Pavel Makov was chosen for the Osaka Triennial in the late 1990s. Her plays have been staged in New York and Washington DC. Begin At Once is her eighth book of poems. Others include The April Wars, Broad Daylight, Excontemporary,

Self-Regard, and The Bottleneck.

For many years, Beth Joselow taught on the faculty of the Corcoran School of Art + Design. She is now a psychotherapist working mostly with children. She lives near the Atlantic Ocean in Lewes DE with her husband and a large dog.

Beth Joselow