Childhood abuse, drug use, violence, disease, and war enter into many of the stories that form this collective tale. Sometimes broken and eerie, sometimes lyrical and beautiful, and other times quirkily humorous, the poems gain an added edginess by the use of fixed forms and the re-imagining of the sonnet in the mouths of the twentieth century’s wounded and alienated. Ultimately, Jordan explores the place of beauty, verse, and narrative in helping to move us into a future in which everyone’s story is told.
Tell me Chris are there nights long after the sun’s
yolk has broken across the mountains’ blue ridge
when time becomes so bold it crawls its way
from hibernation and shimmies naked
and shivering to the trees’ highest branches,
when the river weeps so loud and long
the fish choke on their own old sorrows,
when the wild onions close their eyes one by one
and the Queen Anne’s Lace fold up
their blood-spotted handkerchiefs
and lie down in ditch weed and sorrel the final time,
nights when the steel band of your ribs tightens
and your hands go cold, nights when you know
you will never see Greece again. Never.
