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    A Night Without Armor : Poems

    A Night Without Armor : Poems
    Author: Jewel
    Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
    Category: Book

    List Price: $11.95
    Buy Used: $0.01
    You Save: $11.94 (100%)



    New (45) Used (263) Collectible (7) from $0.01

    Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars 415 reviews
    Sales Rank: 77560

    Media: Paperback
    Pages: 160
    Number Of Items: 1
    Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
    Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.7 x 0.6

    ISBN: 0061073628
    Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
    EAN: 9780061073625
    ASIN: 0061073628

    Publication Date: September 1, 1999
    Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

    Also Available In:

      • Hardcover - A Night Without Armor: Poems
      • School & Library Binding - Night Without Armor
      • Audio Cassette - A Night Without Armor
      • Audio CD - Night Without Armor Cd
      • Audio Download - A Night Without Armor
      • Paperback - A Night Without Armor : Poems
      • Hardcover - A Night Without Armor: Poems

    Similar Items:

      • Chasing Down the Dawn
      • Jewel - Live at Humphrey's by the Bay
      • Perfectly Clear
      • Jewel - A Life Uncommon
      • Pieces of You

    Editorial Reviews:

    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

    Product Description

    I've learned that not all poetry lends itself to music--some thoughts need to be sung only against the silence. These are softer and less tangible parts of ourselves that are so essential to peace, to open-heartedness, to unfolding the vision and the spiritual realm of our lives, to exposing our souls.
    -- Jewel from the Preface

    Jewel has been writing poems and keeping journals since childhood. A Night Without Armor, her first collection of poetry, 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.




    Customer Reviews:   Read 410 more reviews...

    4 out of 5 stars A very personal & sincere poetry collection   February 20, 2009
    GameGrrl
    Jewel is very poetic and her lyrics just roll off the tongue. If you've never heard her sing, she has a certain twang to her song that you'll either adore or not. I personally love her singing and if you do too, you will want to get this sweet, and sometimes bittersweet collection of her simple yet memorable poems. I was inspired to make a few of my own after reading hers, and play around with words the way she does. This book is the cat's meow fans ;) Thanks for reading!


    3 out of 5 stars A good effort   May 25, 2008
    Book Princess (New York)
    There were quite a few poems I did like. But overall, this collection was boring. I think she should stick to singing.


    5 out of 5 stars "I am in love with a man who is gone now..."   August 19, 2007
    ADRIENNE MILLER (TENNESSEE)
    1 out of 2 found this review helpful

    A Night without Armor by Jewel is an excellent and under-rated book of poems. Ok so she's not Shakespeare but most writers aren't. These poems have been highly-criticized in the past, and it's a shame that Jewel was unfairly mocked by critics and so-called fans. I got this collection of poems the first week it was released and I fell in love with the book instantly, the poems are sensual, seductive, sensitive, and incredibly funny as well. Some of my favorites are: The Bony Ribs of Adam, Sara Said, The Strip Parts 1 and 2, New Moon, Someone To Know Me, Christmas in Hawaii, Red Roof Inn, Boston, and You Are Not. So with that being said, get this great collection of poems by Jewel today.


    5 out of 5 stars I love it!   July 23, 2007
    A. McDonald (TN United States)
    Very well done! The expression drawn from deep within is very identifiable. I love it!


    4 out of 5 stars I'm the exception to the rule.   April 29, 2007
    Sara M. Kay (Newport, OR)
    2 out of 2 found this review helpful

    I found THAT book brilliant? Eye-opening? Of course I did, once upon a time. I am usually the exception to the rule. I like people who are usually reviled and I am drawn to other things that can be otherwise shunned or whatever else...maybe because I feel like I too am shunned or reviled.

    Poetry can take on so many forms, so many incarnations. What one person finds incoherant, another might find powerful. There really are no limits to the styles of verse or subject matter, and not everybody has to understand or approve of it. While I might not get the same momentum that I found when I first began reading this book...the poems here are rather simple and sparse, with not much rhythm at all in the lines if any, I am still proud to have it in my library because it is a very personal body of work which is unique only to Jewel Kilcher's life experiences. She may not be up to par with the writing abilities of Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas or Sylvia Plath, but not many writers are.

    Poetry, above any other form of writing, is an individual experience. Different people will have different reactions to it. I suggest you read it for yourself first before you decide to form an opinion of it.



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