A Door on the River

Chatwin Books is proud to be issuing A Door on the River, the first book by Jessica Hornik. In this beautiful collection, the poems carry a quiet power rooted in nature, place, and family.

In addition to the paperback edition, a special hardcover limited edition of 250 copies, signed and numbered, is available.

“August” captures the essence of what makes this author, and her work, so unforgettable:

Sighing as I go,
exhaling summer’s heat—
I’m done. Done
introducing the goldenrod
to the roadside society
of asters. My final act.
September wakes now
to a blue like no other,
a glazed transparency,
the sunlight downright
urgent on the backs
of blackbirds. The river
sparkles hard, as though
an unglimpsed immortality
pressed up from below.
As though.

Jessica Hornik lives and writes in a hamlet in upstate New York. Her poems have appeared in publications including the Atlantic, Poetry, the New Republic, National Review, the TLS, and the Yale Review. She earned degrees from Cornell University and New York University. The mother of two sons, she lives with her husband in a house on the Mohawk River, a few miles from where she grew up. She works as a freelance editor.