Transmission Loss - Paperback

by Chelsea Jennings (Author)

In the study of sound waves and optics, the term transmission loss refers to how a signal grows weaker as it travels across distance and between objects. In this book, Chelsea Jennings reimagines the term in poems that register attenuated signals, mark presence and loss, and treat the body as an instrument sensitive to the weather of immediate experience. Threading together landscapes, abstract paintings, family heirlooms, maps, manuscripts, and photographs, these poems follow the seasons and traverse the spectrum of visible light. Vivid and precise, Transmission Loss brings us to the boundary between inside and outside, "As if what the hand knows / could be held in the hand."

Author Biography

Chelsea Jennings is a Seattle-based writer and educator. She has been the recipient of a number of awards, among them a Discovery/Boston Review prize. Her poems have appeared in Cincinnati Review, Black Warrior Review, december, Sugar House Review, Madison Review, Mississippi Review, Sycamore Review, Poet Lore, and Best New Poets.