Exile in My Homeland

About the Book

Exile In My Home Land, though an autonomous poem, develops from two previous long poems by Dale Jacobson, Factories and Cities and A Walk by the River, bringing together their manifestly separate themes, history and politics on one hand, and metaphysical questions of loss and mortality on the other.  Ranging through the poet’s personal experience, the poem confronts the destructive as well as constructive forces operating beyond our individual control that nonetheless define our lives.  Working from the author’s childhood as a reference, the poem wants to make sense of these various powers, often ruthless and absolute, which present themselves as either human constructions such as war, or the inexorable forces of nature.  In writing about nature or mortality, poets tend to exclude history and politics as if they are irrelevant.  This poem sweeps beyond those conventional esthetical limitations, drawing connections between all these themes of nature, history, politics and mortality, using the backdrop of the author’s personal experience. The poem explores these enormous powers, and our perception of them, as we struggle to determine our place in the universe.

About the Author

Dale Jacobson’s recent books of poetry include  Voices of  the Communal Dark (2000) and A Walk by the River (2004), both from Red Dragonfly Press known for its fine hand-printed productions. The latter book is also available in a trade edition.  Remarking upon another recent book, his long political poem Factories and Cities (2003),  the poet Gary David wrote:  “Factories and Cities is the most powerful long poem I''ve read in a long time, perhaps since Tom McGrath''s Letter to an Imaginary Friend.  Rooted in a sense of place (the Upper Midwest) and a specific history (the last half of the 20th century), Jacobson’s magnum opus speaks to a distant future beyond cynicism, where material equality and universal justice are not just corny, outdated sentiments but an enduring way of life that could well be called sacred.”  Jacobson has published substantial commentary on the work of Thomas McGrath in American Poetry Review and North Dakota Quarterly. His close friendship with McGrath led to his providing editorship for the definitive edition of McGrath’s epic poem, Letter to an Imaginary Friend.  In 2005 he was designated Honorary Poet Laureate of North Dakota by the state’s Poet Laureate, Larry Woiwode.  He teaches in North Dakota and  resides in his home state of Minnesota.