Synopses & Reviews
"Abominable"
I have looked, and found you,
wanting; not you in particular.
Personified,
which of us is abominable?
Your red hair,
your deep sizable snowprints
off the dark road, inside
the crystal woodland.
With my penlight, I've looked.
I am afraid of you, and not
to be surprised by your figure
approaching, has to be a blessing,
even if accompanied by death.
For it must be
the way of God's gifts: not to be
believed, and confessed.
Rodney Jack's work appeared in AGNI, Ploughshares, and Poetry, which awarded him the Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize. He took his life in 2008.
Synopsis
A Navy veteran's comprehensive, posthumous collection, culled from three manuscripts by Wayne Johns and the poet Cate Marvin.
About the Author
Rodney Jack was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on October 2, 1964. He served in the United States Navy for six years, and on board the USS Missouri during Operation Desert Storm. He received an MFA from Warren Wilson College, where he was a Holden Minority Fellow. He was also a GE Foundation Resident Artist of Color at Yaddo, a Fellow at MacDowell, a Peter Mayer Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference and a Bread Loaf Scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. His work appeared in AGNI, Blackbird, Open City, Ploughshares, and Poetry, which awarded him the Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize. In the fall of 2007, he returned to Warren Wilson as the Beebe Teaching Fellow. He took his own life on August 6, 2008.