The Book of Kin by Jennifer Eli Bowen

Jennifer Eli Bowen’s debut essay collection THE BOOK OF KIN, ON ABSENCE, LOVE, AND BEING THERE is a study in compassion and connection. As the founder of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Bowen knows a thing or two about community and what happens when it’s missing. Through a series of essays, Bowen examines loss – both her own and that of others and asks us to consider our obligation to one another.

In an essay about visiting Halden Prison in Norway, she writes about the way staff, officers, and the incarcerated men interact – sharing meals and conversation.

“Eye contact is mandatory for everyone here – incarcerated men and staff alike … What a difference it must make: to refuse to let one person disappear before the eyes of another.”

No one here is discarded. And Bowen knows what it means to be discarded. For years, she fantasized that her father, who abandoned their family when she was very young, hovered nearby watching her every move.

In the essay “The Wildest Show”, she recounts her visit to Angola Prison for their annual rodeo – where the incarcerated men are set like bowling pins to be knocked over by a raging bull – gravely injured for their one moment of being seen by an audience of hundreds (some of them family members of the incarcerated) who raucously cheer from the stands.

In a less provocative essay, though still emotionally wrought, “Leaving Delicious”, Bowen is heartbroken when her favorite chicken, Delicious, turns out to be a rooster, forbidden within the city limits. When she finds a nearby farmer willing to take him, she tells the farmer about the rooster’s uniqueness: the way he makes eye contact with her and flies up onto her shoulder when she is in the yard. The farmer is indulgent, not condescending, but this is a man who raises animals for a living, not pets. Bowen feels the sting of abandoning Delicious, much the way she felt the sting of being abandoned by her father. She reflects upon an influential professor’s assignment, asking his students to define where love comes from. All these years later, she muses that to define its origin may threaten to limit it.

“Maybe love is not proprietary or scarce, or dependent on DNA … maybe love hides in plain sight, like a fallen apple on cut grass.”

Bowen finds community and connection in other places. THE BOOK OF KIN is a call and a response. Like the gaze of her beloved rooster Delicious. Like the educators who saw within Bowen a latent talent and a sharp knowing spirit.  “I see you; I see you too,” she writes.

“What’s our obligation to each other?” Bowen wonders. Guiding us with a delft hand and a tender heart, Bowen makes it clear that love can be found in the most unlikely places – if we’re looking for it.

Listen to my interview with Jennifer Eli Bowen on Thursday, October 23 at 7 pm and the 25th at 6am on Superior Reads on WTIP Radio, 90.7 Grand Marais, or stream it from the web at www.wtip.org.