Get Well Soon

In the spring of 2020, Jamie Sharpe was in New Brunswick, purportedly studying the famed Magnetic Hill outside Moncton. A dog-walker discovered Sharpe in a ditch, disrobed except for his backpack containing a manuscript …

With his fifth collection, Get Well Soon, Sharpe reaffirms “he is utter master of his language. Whether [Sharpe’s] poems are the result of long lucubration or the inspiration of the moment, they bear no mark of effort, and it is not without admiration, nor even without astonishment, that one is carried along — by the noble, unswerving amble of those gorgeous stanzas, proud white hackneys harnessed in gold — into the glory of the evenings. Rich and subtle, [Jamie Sharpe]’s poetry is never merely lyrical; it always encloses an idea within the garland of its metaphors, and however vague or general that idea may be, it serves to strengthen the necklace; the pearls are secured by a thread that, though sometimes invisible, is ever sure.”