Let Our Bodies Change the Subject is a poetry collection that dives headlong into the terrifying, wondrous, sleep-deprived existence of being a parent in twenty-first-century America. In clear, dynamic verses that disarm then strike, Jared Harél investigates our days through the keyhole of domesticity, through personal lyrics and cultural reckonings. Whether taking a family trip to Coney Island, donating blood in a synagogue basement, or simply showing his son snowflakes on Inauguration morning, Harél guides us toward moments of intimacy and understanding, humor and grief. “I will try,” he admits, “to be better than myself, which is all/I’ve ever wanted and everything I need.” Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Let Our Bodies Change the Subject is a secular prayer. Hoping against hope, Harél works to reconcile feelings of luck and loss, of living for joy while fearing the worst.
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Available for order: UNP, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Amazon
*If you’d like to buy a personalized or signed copy of Let Our Bodies Change the Subject ($18, shipping included) please email: jaredharel@gmail.com
Blurbs
“This life, Jared Harél, says, is a sad rollercoaster, all of us with our arms up, screaming on the way down. . . . Even so, there are ‘sorbet-colored koi’ beneath a pond, a daughter singing, a father donating blood to the Red Cross, sea stars, morning prayers before work with Tefillin in sweatpants and socks. This book was written with, what Czeslaw Milosz is quoted as saying, ‘compassion for others entangled in the flesh.’”
— DORIANNE LAUX
“Meet Death in the guise of family, Desire in the kitchen, Lost Love in the driveway, Terror in an old truck, and Misfortune in waking up. Each clear and short poem deals with The Unimaginable and imagines it. How can anyone not need this book?”
—HILDA RAZ
“Jared Harél explores the fullness of family—what it’s like to be a parent, with gun violence, hate, and disease lurking in the shadows but also awe and joy, and what it’s like to be a brother, a husband, a son, and holy skeptic. These poems—simple and heavy at the same time, smooth with crisp images—will bring you closer to yourself and the people you love.”
—JEFFREY McDANIEL