Rushing in as a welcome surprise, these "new late poems" were mostly composed both late in the year and late in the author's years. In Jump Straight Up, Jarold Ramsey versifies and pokes at an odd knot of themes: encroaching age overtaking a long wonderful marriage; the delights of grandparenthood; awareness of our "interspecies" situation in the everyday natural order; the blessings and challenges of Central Oregon's canyons, summits, and rangelands; and the intriguing ways the mostly horizontal left-to-right axis of our lives seems to shift in old age toward the vertical-"way down" (and out) but also "jump straight up" (in the imagination).
"Whether it's with elegies or tributes, Ramsey prompts us toward joy, urging us to jump straight up, / free of the gravity of time."
-Paulann Petersen, author of My Kindred
"Jump Straight Up is a buoyantly beautiful report from a Northwest master at age 85."
-John Daniel, author of Gifted
"Ramsey delivers accounts of history, local lore, love for kinfolk, and yearning to understand the changes carrying us all along, richly in need of poems just like these."
-Kim Stafford, author of Singer Come from Afar
