No One Took a Country from Me
Jacqueline Frank
"The poems repeatedly place the reader sensually into a setting—usually natural, sometimes social—filled with overtones; they compel the reader to be
alert to the scene's significance. These glimpses of a cathedral, these family gardens, these landscapes so naturally described, occur without effort in the
poems, but are also haunted by a sense of still deeper meaning: something big, something very everyday, something alarming."
——Bill Holshouser, Ararat (Spring 1983)
about the author
Jacqueline Frank (Bourguignon) was born in the south of France in 1928. Her adolescent and teenage years were dominated by World War II-the surrender of France, the Nazi occupation. Her older brother was a member of the underground, and she herself was a member of the Resistance. She came to the United States to attend college, married an American, and lived in this country for thirty years, returning to France in 1977. She studied poetry writing for many years with Harold Bond, and her poems appeared in a number of periodicals, including Ararat. She died by suicide in August 1981 during a visit to the United States. The book was published posthumously from a manuscript completed by the poet before her death.
