Reviews & Endorsements for The Glass Sponge

In this strong and vulnerable collection of poetry, the poet spins out a thoughtful imagery of innocence and culpability, for (and of) "the users and the abused". Salvation by imagination is the lifeline running throughout this chapbook - the imagination of other worlds, the worlds of one's own volition - from old baseball fields, to quicksilver waves, to the vast unjudging Milky Way, accompanied by Michelangelo's angel and Rodin's Cupid. These poems should be read in places where, as the poet puts it, "The Magic Was Missing From The Room", in places where one's "blood runs forsythia yellow", where the signature listeners are soldier-stiff Gapkids facing a tender bleakness. Jules Jacob inhabits a dichotomous world, and with delicate magnetism, draws us into it, in each poem.

— Dr. Harrison Solow. Harrison Solow is a Pushcart Prize winning writer, author and university professor. Her latest book is Felicity & Barbara Pym.

Jules Jacob is a lyrical truth-teller in The Glass Sponge. Her poetry breaks silences, giving us more breathable air.

— Marilyn Kallet, Director, Creative Writing Program, University of Tennessee
Author of 15 books, including Packing Light: New and Selected Poems