Elegy For The Southern Drawl

Exulting in the speech of his native Alabama, Rodney Jones's new poems combine satire and ode, formal lament and ribald joke. James Dickey praised this poet's early work as "one of our most poignant and inescapable renditions of the agony at the historical razor's edge." Now, in his sixth book, Jones extends his emotional and stylistic range. He writes of football and feminism, of DDT and family, of crows and sex, of ink and raccoons and perpetual-motion machines. In many of these poems the southern drawl lives forever, riding on the tide of regional language, poking fun yet delighting in it.

"Rodney Jones, in my view, is one of the two or, at most, three best poets of his generation. He is a true poet of his own culture. He is brilliant, wise, deeply sane, incredibly knowledgeable about the craft, tender, moving, honest, and--pure. I love reading him. He gives me hope for poetry." -- Gerald Stern, Winner of the National Book Award for Poetry, 1998

"A brand-new, world-class poet." National Book Critics Circle