J. Allyn Rosser is an American poet, educator, and editor whose work blends wit, lyricism, and sharp observation of human experience. She has published four acclaimed poetry collections, with a fifth, Chronic Transience, forthcoming in 2025, and her poems have appeared in leading journals including The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. Rosser’s career is marked by numerous honors, among them fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets, as well as prizes for each of her first three books. She is Professor Emerita of English at Ohio University, where she also served as editor of New Ohio Review.

This week, we welcomed J. Allyn Rosser to discuss her forthcoming collection Chronic Transience from Unbound Edition Press. With her trademark blend of wit, formal mastery, and emotional depth, Rosser reflects on mortality, memory, and the absurdities of daily life. In this intimate conversation, she reads and discusses poems such as “Evening Primrose,” “Respite,” “Well-Attended Event,” “Notes on the Latin,” and “Pre-Latter-day Love Poem,” sharing the personal stories and artistic impulses behind them. We talk about her father’s late-life paintings, the place of humor in poems about grief, the pull of formal verse, and how influences as varied as old Hollywood films, mistranslations, and even poker find their way into her work.

Join us as we dive into J. Allyn Rosser’s poetry and explore how her wit, formal craft, and reflections on loss, humor, and art shape and enrich her creative voice.

This is J. Allyn Rosser Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Chronic Transience on Amazon, or directly from us at:  

https://www.unboundedition.com/product/chronic-transience-j-allyn-rosser-poetry/ 

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