Disco de Jewel: “Night Without Armor: Poems by Jewel”

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.

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...

I truly enjoyed Jewel's book. Granted, some of her poetry is simple, but poetry does not have to be complex and contain hidden meanings to be good. Jewel is an honest writer who bares her soul and her feelings. Like others who have bashed her book, I too, have read a great deal of poetry. I have read Yeats, Eliot, Auden, and I am taking an entire course on Shakespeare alone. All of these writers are amazingly talented, but at the same time so is Jewel. She may not be on the same level as the "greats" but she has been able to inspire many people, not all of whom are a bunch of "teeny-boppers". I think that her poetry is beautiful, straightforward, and honest. I also believe that many people have used this review to bash Jewel because they just don't like her, not because of her poetry. Poetry is a connection between thoughts, the soul, pen, and paper...who are we to judge???

Please! How terribly naive and gushing this all is. I can't recall a more superficial book--save for maybe Danielle Steel's gooey foray into poetry a few years back. It's disheartening to see even the shrouded world of poetry is not safe from star power and the sellability of glamour and physical beauty. No one can possibly argue that if Jewel were not a celebrity this book would *ever* have been published. The poems brazenly reflect this--they are immature (and in that sense I mean not formed, rounded, or filled out), trite, and laden with every high school diary cliche I can possibly imagine. Her word useage is light and cutsey, parsed with terribly clunky attempts at intellectual posturing: words like "taciturn" and "disillusionment" serve only to disrupt whatever melodic flow she might have found in the text. What is completely lacking in the verses is strength. Her words have no weight, no ballast. Anyone can write about love and passion and trust--only the best of poets can magnify these things with strength and poise. Jewel's words are flat and tired, overused and overwrought. What this book needs is restraint and time--give her ten or fifteen years and perhaps by then she'll have worked out everything to a point where she can bring to the text something new and worth our time. Until then, pass this one (and Ethan Hawk's and every other celebrity attempt) for something with soul.

Maybe one metaphor in this book is fresh, the rest is cliched. The stuff can be argued to be song lyrics or prose divided badly into lines, but they are not poems. She is like one of those incorrigible girls in my creative writing class who is constantly castigated by our teacher but maintains she'll become a successful singer.