Ripe
Winner of the 2002 The Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry
selected by Edward Hirsch
"Roy Jacobstein has a canny intellect and a deep empathetic imagination.
He writes here from the very midst of life—as a poet, a doctor, a Jew, a father, a son
pierced by memories of his lost Midwestern childhood. We are beholden to what we love,
and Ripe is a first book of full maturity, of bittersweet experience and deep fruition,
of earthly plenitude."
— Edward Hirsch
"From the ripeness of death to the ripeness of the birth canal,
with wit and rue, with tenderness and rigor and cleansing disenchantment, Roy
Jacobstein writes a poetry of blessing for our time. Nothing in this writer's
large experience — a union barbershop in mid-century Detroit, the obstetrics
ward in a Cambodian refugee camp, the "befuddlement" of childhood, the wisdom
of the nursing child, the lab, the boardroom, the luminous common heritage of
the printed page — nothing appears to have been lost on him or, thanks to him,
on us. In a world beset with loss, this exhilarating, mindful, compassionate book
allows us the dream of wholeness. It is tonic for the soul. It is — of how many
books can this be said? — from poem to poem and vista to vista, good company."
— Linda Gregerson, Book jacket comments for Ripe
"Roy Jacobstein's Ripe, winner of the Felix Pollak Prize, is a book of balance,
precision, and wit. Each poem feels solidly present in what it knows, each poem is fragrant
with lived life ..."
— Jane Hirshfield, Ploughshares, Fall 2003, Recommended Book
