"Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything. It just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you."
~ James Douglas Morrison
Like a slap in the face, the poems of Jamie Lynn Gilbert are potent and immediate, condensed little nuggets of meaning and symbol that leave the reader breathless. Jamie tells tales of the exotic and the everyday with a tone that at once stimulates and threatens. She weaves it all into a mythology of modern life, telling tales of larger-than-life lesbians and constant catastrophies.
Jamie says, "There comes a time in everyone's life where they have to decide by which criteria to define themselves. While it may seem like the most obvious selection, I choose occupation as my primary definitive characteristic, with location as a necessary postscript, because of the high value I place on my profession and the extreme passion I feel for it. I am jazz music director and host of the program Nightside on CMU Public Radio in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Recently referred to as narcissistic, I do not deny my intense desire to have people talk about me when I am not around. That's why I chose a public profession. When not talking to people who are not in the room, I attend graduate school at Central Michigan University, where I am earning a masters degree in broadcast and cinematic arts. I have previously published work in the anthology oh. and in the journal Blind Man's Rainbow. You can reach me at queenoftheairwaves@radiomail.org.
"Poetry is an intimate expression of one's self. Many of my pieces are based on true stories, although others are purely figments of my imagination. To tell you which are which is to unveil the mystery."
Jamie's works here at Unlikely Stories are:
2002:
Declaration
Magenta Mood
Prisoner of Elm Street, Apt. 6A
Cynthia
Kait