Alabama

“If there is a way to hold on, to recover some part of what’s lost, and grasp—for even a fleeting moment—the ineffable, this marvelous book is it.” ~Natasha Trethewey

“Rodney Jones is perhaps the supreme example we have of the southern human person speaking in American poetry.” ~Kate Daniels

“Jones has found an inevitable, pared-down, utterly original way of telling his story in the context of the culture he comes from. This is a lovely book, for its humor as well as its compassion.” ~Alan Williamson

“No one can match Jones for the range of unflinching sensibility or the miraculous capacity to wrench blessing out of dailiness and degradation and active harm.” ~Linda Gregerson

“Jones is a trustworthy storyteller precisely because he can’t help but stay emotionally attached to what he often intellectually disbelieves. Alabama is a great book by a great poet.” ~Alan Shapiro