Product Description

I've learned that not all poetry lends itself to music -- some thoughts need to be sung only against the silence. There are softer and less tangible part[s] of our selves that are so essential to peace, to openheartedness, to unfolding the vision and the spiritual realm of our lives, to exposing our souls.
- Jewel, From the Preface

Writing poems and keeping journals since childhood, Jewel has been searching for truth and meaning, turning to her words to record, to discover, and to reflect.

In A Night Without Armor, her first collection of poetry, Jewel explores the fire of first love, the fading of passion, the giving of trust, the lessons of betrayal, and the healing of intimacy.

She delves into matters of the home, the comfort of family, the beauty of Alaska, and the dislocation of divorce.

And then there are the images of the road, the people, the bars, the planes, places exotic and mundane, loneliness and friendship.

Frank and honest, serious and suddenly playful, A Night Without Armor is a talented artist's intimate portrait of what makes us uniquely human.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1396840 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-01
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Amazon.com Review
Jewel Kilcher was the first to admit that this book of 100 or so of her poems would not have been published if her dazzling debut album, Pieces of You, hadn't sold 10 million copies. And granted, Jewel is not going to replace Deborah Garrison's A Working Girl Can't Win on anybody's hit parade of serious poets who write for regular people.

But--shockingly!--Jewel's book of poetry is solid by celeb-poet standards, and a fair bit of it is actually sort of readable in its own right. Maybe it's not a bad idea to raise your kids on an 80-acre Alaskan farm with plenty of chores and no TV, as Mr. Kilcher did. Unlike most young people, let alone overnight stars, Jewel has led a life of some intrinsic interest. While they're often prosaically straightforward, her poems about rescuing a newborn calf in the midnight snow, listening to wolves howl in a canyon storm, and racing naked out of a sauna of a winter evening bring us more useful experience than kid poets usually have to share. Some of Jewel's homesteading verse is no worse than some of Gary Snyder's late nature poems; though she'll never write nature poems remotely as good as his early work Riprap, neither will he, probably. Preachiness is the enemy of both poets' deep religious impulses.

Jewel's poems about dumping a lover or thrilling to parking-lot sex "between the moon and a Chevrolet" are perceptive, at points even evocative. Her ode to her own breasts as a nest for her beloved is no good, but it's an honest failure. Her dress at the Oscars was more embarrassing.

The music critics contend that Jewel's music is influenced by Joni Mitchell, though Jewel claims she didn't listen to her until lately. In comparing Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics with Jewel's book, we find that both use the image of the cactus for a heart that resists a restricting embrace, but that Mitchell is cleverer with language. When Joni's lover is away, "Me and them lonesome blues collide / The bed's too big, / The frying pan's too wide." Meanwhile, Jewel baldly observes, "I miss you miserably, dear / and I can't quite manage / to face this unbearably / large bed / alone."

On the other hand, Jewel does conclude with a nice image for toughing it out with a sentimental gesture--she shaves her armpits with his razor and cheap hotel soap. Ow! We feel her pain. Also, Jewel's "Underage" holds its own against Mitchell's "Raised on Robbery," while demonstrating the influence that probably outweighed Mitchell in Jewel's artistic development: her dad, with whom she played gigs as a child in Alaska.

I hung out once in the bathroom of Trade Winds Harley bar in Anchorage
With several biker chicks for company until the cops had left.
They had pale skin and thick black eye makeup
And they asked me to sing at their weddings.
I said I'd ask my dad.

We all sat on the counter and waited for the pigs to leave.
Some guy OD'd and was outside foaming at the mouth.

I remember looking in the mirror
And seeing this white face,
My shirt all buttoned up.
The women were nice to me
And looked like dark angels
Beside me. I liked them,
And together we waited
Patiently for the cops to leave
So I could go back out
And join my dad up
On stage.

The great peril for Jewel, as for most poets when very young, is artless sincerity. Her poem about her dad's Vietnam War trauma is dead sentiment, but she does far better in "Grimshaw," about a Vietvet who came to watch the Kilchers play, perpetually requesting "Ain't Goin' to Study War No More" and drinking four quarts of beer a night until the day he shot his face off. Which made little Jewel vow to deal with her own emotions sooner rather than too late.

Careless editing permitted Jewel to misspell the names of Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski and the word "peek." Most young fans won't notice, and the very poems about love troubles that older readers will find gratingly obvious will strike them as headline news to be taken to heart. --Tim Appelo

From Library Journal
For people who don't regularly follow MTV (which unfortunately includes most of those who listen to poetry), Jewel will seem to have sprung up out of nowhere. But the 23-year-old Alaska native has four albums to her credit and several web sites. A veteran of the coffee-house scene around San Diego, she brings to mind those New York spots of the late 1950s, where Dylan Thomas played and where there was an open poetry mike. Moreover, Jewel's poems are reasonably good. Sure, there are too many prepositions and some cliched images; an attempt to be philosophical is laughable; and many "poems" are nothing more than fragments. But a lot of the material is also straightforward and deeply honest, e.g., "I am told I am adored by millions, but no one calls." Certainly, she's as good as Leonard Cohen and deserves serious attention from poetry lovers. Released simultaneously as a book, CD, and cassette.?Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
1966
1b
After The Divorce
All The Words
And So To Receive You
As A Child I Walked
Austin, Tx, Sheraton Hotel, 2 A.m.
Awaken, Love
Blanketed By A Citrus Smile
Bleary Eyed
The Bony Ribs Of Adam
Bukowsky's Widow
Camouflage
Cautious
The Chase
Christmas In Hawaii
Coffee Shop
Collect Beads Of Night
Communion
Compass
A Couple Sitting On A Bench
Crazy Cow
The Dark Bells
Dionne & I
Dylan
Envy
The Fall
Fat
Father Of A Deaf Girl
Forgetful
Fragile
Freedom
Gather Yourself
God Exists Quietly
Gold Fish
Goodness (a Poem For Shane)
Grimshaw
Home
I Am Not From Here
I Am Patient
I Don't Suppose Raindrops
I Guess What I Wanted Was
I Keep Expecting You To
I Look At Young Girls Now
I Miss Your Touch
I Say To You Idols
I'm Writing To Tell You
In The South Of England Somewhere
The Inertia Of A Lonely Heart
Infatuation
Insecurity
It Has Been Long
Junky
Lemonade
Long Has A Cloak
Lost
Love Poem
Lovers For Lilly
May Brought Longer Days: 1
May Brought Longer Days: 2
Mercy
Miracle
New Moon
Night Falls
P.s.
Paramount, Ny, 9:34 A.m.
Parking Lot
Pretty
Red Light District, Amsterdam
Red Roof Inn, Boston
The Road
Road Spent
Sara Said
Sauna
Sausages
Saved From Myself
Seattle
Second Thoughts In Columbus, Ohio
Shush
A Slow Disease
The Slow Migration Of Glaciers
So Just Kiss Me
Someone To Know Me
Sometimes
Spivey Leaks
Spoiled
Steady Yourself
Still Life
The Strip 1
The Strip 2
Sun Bathing
Tai Pei
Tai Pei 2
Tai Pei 3
Taking The Slave
The Tangled Roots Of Willows
The Things You Fear
Those Certain Girls
Though I Am 8
Too Many Nights
Traffic
Underage
Vincent Said
We Have Been Called
We Talk
Wild Horse
Wolves In The Canyon
You
You Are Not
You Tell Me
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

1966
1b
After The Divorce
All The Words
And So To Receive You
As A Child I Walked
Austin, Tx, Sheraton Hotel, 2 A.m.
Awaken, Love
Blanketed By A Citrus Smile
Bleary Eyed
The Bony Ribs Of Adam
Bukowsky's Widow
Camouflage
Cautious
The Chase
Christmas In Hawaii
Coffee Shop
Collect Beads Of Night
Communion
Compass
A Couple Sitting On A Bench
Crazy Co --Entertainment Weekly, Andrew Essex

[H]er best poems, raw autobiographical sketches that chronicle her Alaskan upbringing, hint that Jewel is just a polish away from shining. -- Entertainment Weekly, Andrew Essex

Customer Reviews

I'm a certified poetry elitist, but I liked this.
I am a poet, with work published in places like Amelia and Impetus. And for 6 years, I published a poetry magazine called Whisper. I read tens of thousands of poems, from many of the same people who are here, reviewing Jewel's work harshly. I spend my time talking about Lifshin or Lewis or Cummings with other poets, go to coffee shops for poetry reading now and then, and even hosted a few poetry slams. I tell you that for two reasons: first, to help you decide if I speak with any authority; and second, because I am going to commit a mutiny.

I will not join the chorus of poets in protest here. Saying "this isn't poetry!" over and over again won't make it true. Getting all bent out of shape over how Jewel is making poetry available to (gasp) the masses is ridiculous. I feel like I'm watching the punk scene happen all over again -- every time someone had a success, the fans screamed "sell out!" My, how we love to topple those on top.

My loyalty is not to the poets, but to poetry. My loyalty is not to some exclusionary club of latte-sucking introverts, full of pretense, but to language itself. And that is why I must break ranks and say this book is just what the world of poetry needed. Poetry may be "language molded into magnificent text" and many other things, such as meter and rhyme -- but the single most important trait of poetry is that it is relevant. It affects you in a way that is deep and impactful. And Jewel's poetry does exactly that, with so many memorable poems and vivid images filling my head that I eager to read her book again.

When reviewers complain that Jewel ought to read some poets before she publishes her own work, they betray their own failure to read her work. For in her book, she DOES talk about her love of poets and mentions them by name. Bukowski comes to mind. In fact, her work resembles Bukowski's. And I realize half the poetry community would gasp to hear me make that comparison, but so what? Both poets write in plain English, without even so much as an attempt to embellish or prop it up with words so full of pompous exaggeration. They both write about everyday events in an almost prosaic way.

Does this mean that Jewel's work is a pinnacle of success? No, she lacks the experience of a man like Bukowski, or Cummings, or dozens of others. But she has the talent. In fact, after reading more poems by more poets than nearly any poetry lover could stand, I feel it is reasonable to say that Jewel outshines 90% of the poetry out there. It may take another 2 or 3 books before Jewel has honed her craft, and if she's any good, she'll spend the rest of her life reinventing her words. But what you have here is the poetry of a young woman on the verge of a breakthrough -- the words are raw, but often brilliant.

Almost anybody could've written these.
Walt Whitman, what have you wrought upon us?

The advent of free verse was like literary punk music: While a potentially liberating influence which could serve to wrest artistic expression from the elite, it also leveled the playing field to such an extent that almost anybody putting words into a "poetic" arrangement could now call his/her work "poetry".

I liked Jewel's early music a lot; I'd bought her record Pieces of You a whole year before "You Were Meant for Me" became a hit, before that song made a little neo-folk album (which had many tracks recorded live, acoustically) into a sales juggernaut. But even when I was listening to her songs, I never considered Jewel to be much of a lyricist. Her chief strengths were really melody, a simple guitar style, and her voice. Jewel's lyrics were almost always direct expressions of what she believes -- no hidden meanings, no craft, and almost never any surprising thoughts (after all, she was 20).

On her poetry, the problem burns right through. Stripped of the melodies at which she excelled, her writing is awfully sappy, worthy of high-school student scribbles. And it reads without much verbal (ie. poetic) flow. Have the layout artist put the verses and stanzas back together, and it sounds like undoctored prose. What use is the term "poetry" if it's just prose broken up? Sometimes Jewel does come up with interesting imagery, but if her artistic expression is all image and no verbal artistry, then she should be doing photography or film work, not poetry.

Young readers with little experience reading poetry may respond to the artlessness of it and embrace the direct sentiments of this writing. But to them I would suggest: Write your own poetry, get your friends to do the same, and read one another's works. Chances are it'll be just as good as what's collected and published here. Even Jewel herself admitted that the publication of these poems was due to her fame as a musician, not her skill as a poet, and frankly, I don't think her writing comes close to being able to stand alone without her guitar and songwriting.

Not since William Shatner entered the recording studio...
Fairness demands that we judge this work on its own merits. So put out of your mind the platinum certifications for "Pieces of You". Even go so far as to remove the dust jacket with its enormous, glamourously lit photograph of the poet. (Now if Emily Dickinson had had the sense to do something like that, she might have had more readers.) Open to a random page and see for yourself what verbal deftness, what metric skill, what artistic insight the author commands:

"A father and son bond / by ogling my breasts"

Hmm. Maybe you better hang on to that dust jacket...