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    When the Only Light Is Fire
    When the Only Light Is Fire
    When the Only Light Is Fire
    Ebook65 pages17 minutes

    When the Only Light Is Fire

    By Saeed Jones

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    About this ebook

    In his debut chapbook of poetry, Saeed Jones walks on the periphery of the South, those places on the outskirts of town, in bars after midnight, and on dangerous backroads where most people keep their heads down or look the other way. Through Texas and Tennessee, Alabama and the riverbeds of the Mississippi, these poems wrap themselves in cloaks of masks and comfort; garments we learn are flammable if we stand too close to flames. D. A. Powell says of Saeed's work, "Like Aeneas carrying his father from the ruined city of Troy, Saeed Jones brings all of his beginnings--the roots and tendrils of the kudzu vines, the 'sky burned to blazing,' the lore and pain and wisdom of salvation--into a new space where art and beauty stagger the mind; where the story of transformation becomes part of the cultural body of who we are. I get shout-happy when I read these poems; they are the gospel; they are the good news of the sustaining power of imagination, tenderness and outright joy; they are the birth of a new poetry that baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSibling Rivalry Press
    Release dateOct 22, 2011
    ISBN9781937420093
    When the Only Light Is Fire
    Author

    Saeed Jones

    Saeed Jones is the author of Prelude to Bruise, winner of the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry and the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. The poetry collection was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as awards from Lambda Literary and the Publishing Triangle in 2015. Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up in Lewisville, Texas. He earned a BA at Western Kentucky University and an MFA at Rutgers University-Newark. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, and tweets @TheFerocity.

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      Book preview

      When the Only Light Is Fire - Saeed Jones

      When the Only Light Is Fire

      By Saeed Jones

      A Sibling Rivalry Press eBook

      Copyright 2011 by Saeed Jones.

      Front cover photograph, Abandoned Opening, by Christopher Benbow.

      Used by permission (www.noctography.co.uk).

      Cover design by Mona Z. Kraculdy.

      Sibling Rivalry Press, LLC

      13913 Magnolia Glen Drive

      Alexander, AR 72002

      www.siblingrivalrypress.com

      ISBN: 978-1-937420-09-3

      Smashwords Edition

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or republished without written consent from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means be recorded without written consent of the publisher.

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

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