Jennifer Dotson’s compelling new collection of poetry is a hurricane of verse that blends the poet’s mastery at immersive storytelling with her profound insight into life celebrated through its valleys and hills, complete with frequent doses of tongue-in-cheek irony.

The collection is divided into thematic sections full of poems that reminisce, pay homage, even suck the reader into the whirlpool of the subconscious, but most importantly, recognize and honor the stories that make us. The pacing is perfect and the poems are written in a staggering number of forms with enough free verse to balance all the pages.

Like the figs in the title, this collection is all flowers inside, sweet and crunchy, and how it bleeds only to self-heal.

What Other Poets Are Saying

Her work reveals familiarity with poetic styles from ancient to contemporary… the best aspect of this book isn’t even the excellent craft but the lyrical movement of the poems as Dotson explores histories, memories, and dreams, permitting us to construct meaning through the resonance of ‘shared and separate struggles.’
– Ann E. Michael, author of Abundance/Diminishment and The Red Queen Hypothesis

Dotson sculpts dazzling forms, constructed with precision and elegance… a poetic maestra, Dotson’s language is quiet yet candid and clever.
– Christine Swanberg, Poet Laureate of Rockford Emerita

The Figs Are Ripe and We Have Stories suggests that Jennifer Dotson’s life is defined not only by the narratives she draws from personal memory, but also by half-told tales that surround in history and contemporary culture, needing only a poet to make them lively again in a greater fullness of music and rhythm… Dotson’s poems share what she begins to hear.
– Stephen Haven, author of The Flight from Meaning