Channel

In this richly textured first collection, Jordan confronts the primordial undercurrents of language and consciousness. With lush imagery and an extravagant yet exacting vocabulary, she creates a pre-conscious landscape of ``painted forest,'' ``pale exotic plants'' and ``predatory darkness,'' where the awe-inspiring savagery of the natural world serves as a projection of the ``spirit's wilderness.'' Jordan is drawn to the ineffable, the ``evidence of past millenniums'' she can't comprehend: ``the broken ancient skulls, galaxies behind the sun.'' What she seeks is a ``channel'' of understanding--``the hidden stair / that goes down into the roots / where the god sits.'' One channel is language, which ``we feed on, feeling each `vowel's velvet' . . . '' The poems tend toward obscurity, but the introduction rightfully advises the reader not to be put off: Jordan's intensely original insights are worth the effort. (Apr.)