In works whose subjects range from the religious to the carnal, the whimsical to the foreboding,Jennifer Maier’s debut collection of poems,Dark Alphabet, explores the everyday mysteries of our common experience with humor, lucidity, and an unblinking yet compassionate eye. Whether occasioned by a song overheard on the car radio, a packet of risqué postcards from the 1920's, a conversation with a dead parent, or the behavior of ducks in mating season, each poem sets off on a journey that ranges far from its origins, arriving with the reader in a clearing at dusk, in a place of wise good humor and somber grace.

The award-winning poet Jennifer Maier is an associate professor of English at Seattle Pacific University. She serves as an editor for the quarterly journal IMAGE. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, SWINK, The Mississippi Review, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere.

“Jennifer Maier's colloquial language settles you comfortably into the passenger seat for a journey full of surprising turns. The poems are triggered by ordinary events: a friend's asking why she doesn't write novels; the sight of ducks in mating season. Dark Alphabet is a sophisticated blend of wit, intellect, feeling and perception, as mysterious as nightfall and as fresh as daybreak.”—Madeline DeFrees, recipient of the Lenore Marshall/The Nation Prize for her selected poems, Blue Dusk