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In Dubious Terrain: Lyric and Conjecture
Paperback
Publisher: Kelsay Books
Published: Mar 10 2026
Pages: 182
Weight: 0.55
Height: 0.42 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Like Mr. Jonas' earlier collections, In Dubious Terrain situates itself unmistakably in the world of thought and literature. Its rich mix of lyrics, ekphrastics, and prose meditations immerses us in the resonance of a unique voice in constant dialogue with its inspirations: Kafka, Celan, Rilke, Beckett and Blanchot, among others. These pieces are dense with time: fleeting instants, distant memories, the unsettling presence of the immemorial. Their music cuts close to the bone of our words and the breath of our speech, provoking the reader to rethink the nature of identity and difference, expression, dreaming, and meaning. These poems, more than any I know of on the contemporary scene, demonstrate how the proper response to poetry, and to the complexity of the world, is always poetry itself.
-Stuart Kendall, author, Georges Bataille
Like all art of significance, the lyrical contemplations of In Dubious Terrain awaken their audience. They instigate thought. As in the heteronymies of Pessoa, we're transported through alien worlds and alien voices into a transformative disorientation where thinking is not mastery but something undergone, a mutability and susceptibility to change. The beauty of these inducements, the melodies of his thought, place Mr. Jonas beyond category. As we've come to expect from his previous volumes, his poetry stands apart from that of his contemporaries, well apart and, in my estimation, well above.
-James M. Magrini, author, Philosophical Sojourns in Aesthetics, Existence, and Education
Among many other things, In Dubious Terrain is an extended meditation on distances, the curious remoteness of the close-at-hand, the strange proximity of the past. In this deftly crafted verse and prose, reflections on ontology, science, and art are interwoven with nature's mysterious temperaments and arresting beauties. A moving collection.
-Lorette C. Luzajic, founding editor, The Ekphrastic Review and The Mackinaw
The majesty of these poems, and the probing intellect behind them, are a rarity on today's poetry scene. The hermetic, haunting contents of In Dubious Terrain are dauntless explorations of the ineffable lives we lead, something made / from what remains / undone, abandoned, / left unsaid.
-Joel Van Valin, author, Boating on the Styx
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