Back of Mount Peace [Paperback]

Kwame Dawes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2010

Characterized by a beautifully realized reciprocity between outer landscape and the characters’ inner worlds, this remarkable sequence of lyric poetry explores the blossoming of an innately complicated relationship between a retired fisherman named Monty Cupidon and a naked, bloodied, and traumatized woman he encounters standing at a crossroad who cannot remember who she is or where she came from. The only clues to her former identity are the signs that she once wore a wedding ring, has a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, and wears red nail polish on her toes. Woven with the narrative elements of mystery and suspense, the poems examine the relationship—from its innocent beginning through the decay of time and into the eventual corruptions of knowledge. Showing an exceptional delicacy of formal control that constantly reinforces the poem’s insights and moving conclusions, the space between reflection and story, body and mind, and land and sea is examined as the couple begins to realize that in the very process of piecing their lives back together lies their relationship’s probable end.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kwame Dawes is an award-winning poet and author who has received the Forward Poetry Prize, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, and the Pushcart prize for poetry, among others. He is the author of 12 poetry collections, a short story collection, a play, three critical works, and the novel She’s Gone. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Peepal Tree Press Ltd. (April 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845231244
• ISBN-13: 978-1845231248
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #859,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > African

More About the Author

Ghanaian-born Jamaican/ American poet, Kwame Dawes is the award-winning author of eighteen books of poetry and numerous books of fiction, non-fiction, criticism and drama and has edited nine anthologies and numerous books of poetry. He is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, and a Chancellor's Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, and Associate Poetry Editor for Peepal Tree Press in the UK. Kwame Dawes also teaches in the Pacific MFA Writing program and is a faculty member of Cave Canem. Dawes' most recent book, Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems, was published by Copper Canyon in 2013. Dawes is the Director of the biennial Calabash International Literary Festival. Dawes is the author of what is still the most definitive study of the lyrics of Bob Marley, "Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius" He has produced much scholarly work on what he has coined "The Reggae Aesthetic". Dawes lives with his family in Nebraska where he is still trying to understand the language of the big skies.