About
J. Allyn Rosser is the author of four poetry collections and the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, most recently the Stocker Fellowship in 2019. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from Middlebury College in French and English. She is Professor Emerita of English at Ohio University, where she formerly edited New Ohio Review.
Fluent in French, Spanish, and Hungarian, Rosser is an emerging translator. She is also currently at work on a novel set in the 1980s. Her poetry is recognized for its lyricism, wry precision, and versatility, ranging from free verse to nonce and traditional forms.
Praise for Mimi’s Trapeze
“It’s a rare pleasure to follow the quick and pointed intelligence that animates Rosser’s poems. Some are sonnets, some are long and lean, but all have clear, idiosyncratic voices. They come bearing philosophy, nostalgia, rabies, chicken soup, and the head of Holofernes. They’re funny, tart, perceptive—good company. And more than one goes armed with a blackjack ending.”
Sarah Lindsay
“In Rosser’s poems, wit dances with grimness, and sorrow steps out stylishly dressed to kill. But their flash doesn’t obscure the darkling power of these poems; this is a gallant, inventive, large-hearted book.”
Rosanna Warren
“Mimi’s Trapeze leaps from one stunning poem to the next. Writing with all the wit, polemical acumen, metaphorical daring, and formal skill of an eighteenth-century master, Rosser’s sensibility is a most welcome response to the patriarchal arguments of the past.”
Harvard Review Online