| 
author
interview
sample
poems:
Family Portrait
Naming the End
reviews
(coming soon)
|
Now
You’re the Enemy
Poems by James Allen Hall
A family in the aftermath of violence
These
raw and powerful poems have at their heart the charged, archetypal
figure of the mother. Conflicted by the twin desires of self-destruction
and self-preservation, this mother is both terrible and beautiful.
This compassionate, nervy collection of poems shows a family
in the aftermath of violence. James Allen Hall explores themes
of loss, the intersection of grief and desire, and the ways
in which history, art, and politics shape the self.
We meet the speaker's mother in many guises-she is the rogue
Republic of Texas, the titular character of Rosemary's
Baby, a nineteenth century artist's model, a fake entry
in an encyclopedia, the lost queen of King Lear. With clarity,
wit, and compassion, the speaker discovers the facets of his
mother-her own abuse, her years of adultery, her struggle
to remain independent-so that he may come to terms with his
own sexuality.
By seeing his mother in these guises, the speaker understands
identity as it develops along and is reclaimed from the most
repressive of social margins. Hall's poems twine the autobiographical
impulse with a deeper emotional, somewhat surreal, temperament.
This is a book as much about the way we tell our stories as
it is about the stories we tell. Now You're the Enemy
negotiates narrative in order to refashion the self-as a way
to survive, to learn the redemptive power of love.
“From the 'unspeakable cliffs' that
govern the landscape of damage (both physical and psychological)
and of a belief in a life past that-a belief in rescue-James
Allen Hall has looked into those spaces ‘where love
is / only love if it makes you bleed.’ And from what
he has found there, he has crafted these riveting poems, by
turns searing and forgiving, iconoclastic and-unexpectedly,
as if in spite of themselves-sacred. Now You're the Enemy
is a stirring, triumphant debut.”
—Carl Phillips, author of Quiver
of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006
“James Hall is possessed by the family romance, in particular
the figure of a difficult mother who looms on his imaginative
stage. ‘I was,’ he writes, ‘mothered into
art.’ And then some: Hall’s poems are psychically
charged, nervy, both measured and fevered, compassionate and
outrageous, and alive to the very core.”
—Mark Doty, author of Fire to Fire:
New and Selected Poems
“Now You’re the Enemy is a brilliant
exploration of the structure of feeling. This debut collection,
in an astonishing sleight of hand, inflates representation
in order to deflate the inner screen that provides both the
darkness and the monsters.”
—Claudia Rankine, editor of American
Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics
James
Allen Hall is assistant professor of English
at Bethany College in West Virginia. Now You’re
the Enemy was a finalist for the Walt Whitman Book Award
and a semifinalist for the Crab Orchard/Open Competition Book
Award. He's the recipient of an Academy of American Poets
Prize and three Pushcart Prize nominations.
January
2008
5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 70 pages
$16.00 paper
ISBN 978-1-55728-864-6 | 1-55728-864-X |
