The Weather That Kills [Paperback]

Patricia Spears Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1995

poetry, "weather that kills & springs that heal"

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her first collection, Jones illuminates "the secret joy beneath grim turbulence" that propels these poems into her readers' hearts and minds. Exploring "the daily material that makes a life being lived" with a fluent intelligence, she connects the personal to political, self to other, then to now. Rooted in the complexity of the American experience, she traces the presence of the human spirit?heroic, betrayed, betraying?in art, history, geography, politics and popular culture with riveting shifts of scale and focus. "The Perfect Lipstick" moves from a consideration of Christopher Columbus to the slave trade and then leaps assuredly to her "favorite shade of lipstick, Sherry Velour," whose name suggests "Black men in sequined dresses and the click of new words/ in the new world where the most dangerous of dreams/ come true." In "Glad All Over," the poet, an African American, recounts her childhood experience of the civil rights struggle in the South during the '60s in a quiet, truthful telling that gives tribute to "our family's ordinary courage" and creates a compelling, defining image of a pivotal time.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Coffee House Press; First edition. edition (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566890292
• ISBN-13: 978-1566890298
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #719,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars smart, accessible, inhabited, uncompromising, September 23, 2003

By 

Scott R. Hightower (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Weather That Kills (Paperback)

This book is a startling amalgum, filled with edge and beauty. PS Jones is highly literate and aesthetic in her bent. The language is accessible; the poems inhabited; the voice uncompromising. Each balances aesthetically and morally. These poems wisely point to the idea of democracy, responsibility, and liberty--and "the weather" that everyone has to slog through toward the application of those ideals. The poems have a mature political edge. They are stylishly impelled to their moral imperative. Jones is the real deal.