Elegy for the Southern Drawl

Rodney Jones is among the most unique poets we've ever had--he can make you smile; he can hurt you good. His ear for the cadences of speech--all speech, from the corn pone plain-spoken to academic nit-wittery--is superb. He gets better every book, and he was fabulous three or four books back.

Rodney Jones is the best Southern poet working today

Rodney Jones can tell the kind of stories that get you through a hard night or accompany you on a journey home. He writes in a cranked-up, gentled-out vernacular that is as sturdy and dependable as an old hickory, but his lyric gifts make blossoms spring forth even in the coldest times. His South is a place in the heart and a place in the mouth where we can commit beauty or atrocity but where we are always revealing, under his hand, our proud and vulnerable humanity. This will be the best book of poetry published in English this year.