Böcker av Rodney Jones

Alabama focuses on a boy from a rural, fundamentalist community who becomes a pacifist, feminist, and existentialist poet. Labyrinth, meditation, fable, and peasant poem, formed from interleaved strands of prose vignettes and lineated poetry, this collection is at once a tale of cultural exile and familial loyalty, and an unflinching look at regional shame that doubles as a love story, all expressed with the intimate voice and vision of Rodney Jones.

"It's Jones's age-defying distinction to have mobilized a moral intelligence that's sufficiently vast to contain multitudes."-Washington Post Book World Imaginary Logic is a brilliantly expansive, deeply meditative, and at times wildly imaginative collection of poems that combines Rodney Jones's distinctive storytelling ability, sharp social intelligence, and keen powers of observation in a book that is wistful, satiric, audacious, and remorseless. "The Art of Heaven" opens with a parody of Dante and a down-home, twisted humor that Jones's readers have come to rely on: "In the middle of my life I came to a dark wood, / the smell of barbecue, kids running in the yards. / Not deep depression. This nice hell of suburbs. / Speed bumps. The way things aren't quite paradise." Jones, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, is one of America's "best, most generous, and most brilliantly readable poets" (Poetry). Imaginary Logic is the most eloquent expression yet of his rigorous mind, scrupulous eye, and capacious heart. "[Jones'] poems are a work of hands, and hands-on. His rich lyric sentences register experience at the full and thus at its high moment of complexity. Like most of the important poets, he's a lapsed pastoralist attempting to restore-no, save-the fallen."-Stanley Plumly

With Kingdom of the Instant, Rodney Jones delivers a collection of poems that address both transcendent and profane aspects of the American South, art and politics, poverty and privilege. Always engaging, Jones "shows the intensity of his loving regard for every aspect of life, from the grit of the earth to the silk of the skin and all that churns in the mind" (Donna Seaman, Booklist).

In "A Letter to a friend of Robert Burns", Wordsworth wrote "And, of poets more especially, it is true - that, if their works be good, they contain within themselves all that is necessary to their being comprehended and relished". While it is improbable that this assertion was true when he wrote it in 1816, it is certainly not the case for readers of his poetry today. The historical context in which his poetry was written - and which is often reflected in the poems themselves - is, in many respects, little known to today's students of the romantic period, nor to those who simply enjoy reading Wordsworth's poetry. This set of books seeks to remedy that deficiency by providing much needed contextual information. This first volume is set against the background of Wordsworth's life from his birth at Cockermouth in 1770 until his return from Germany in the Spring of 1799. Two subsequent volumes will cover his life in Grasmere and at Rydal Mount respectively.

"More hilarity from the folks who brought us Disorderly Conduct ... It's better to laugh than to cry when contemplating the court system." -Booklist