{"product_id":"nine-persimmons-paperback-softback-9781496243713","title":"Nine Persimmons (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496243713","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eNine Persimmons\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eKerry James Evans (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496243713\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 March 2026\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e84 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Kerry James Evans mines his own experience, and with each poem unboxes honest feelings. His rules are simple: make sense, sing without pretension, take chances, imagine, reveal. The wonder is that he never seems to strain as he fights for that impossible understanding, poetry. \u003ci\u003eNine Persimmons\u003c\/i\u003e is a major victory.\"—Rodney Jones, author of \u003ci\u003eSalvation Blues\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAlabama\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"'I play it out measure by measure,' writes Kerry James Evans. And those soulful measures are filled with a music that is unabashedly Southern. These poems are haunted, full of grit, and down-home. They have no quit in them. If the great Harry Crews had written poetry, he might have written something like Evans's \u003ci\u003eNine Persimmons\u003c\/i\u003e.\"—Tomás Q. Morín, author of \u003ci\u003eMachete\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePatient Zero\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"How does a poet write if an eight-year-old heart still knocks in his chest? A child peers out a car window and beckons to the moon, 'Come to me, Moon.' In Kerry James Evans's \u003cu\u003eNine Persimmons\u003c\/u\u003e the moon conspires, and the sun, the crack in the living room wall, pelicans, guitars, a bag of ice, a French horn, and even God all deliver. The tone, longing. In an honest voice born from a hardscrabble childhood rich with love and labor, Evans gives us a book of 'peanuts and Coca-Cola and a sprinkling of New Testament.' A book of struggle where here, in rural Georgia, 'is the heaven of Paradisio.'\"—Alice Friman, author of \u003ci\u003eOn the Overnight Train: New and Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Backwaters Prize in Poetry Honorable Mention\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eNine Persimmons\u003c\/i\u003e Kerry James Evans traces a geography both intimate and far-flung—Tuscaloosa and Biloxi, Charleston and New Orleans, the Cloisters above Washington Heights, a banana orchard in the Azores, a journey to Rome. The poems move with the gravity of pilgrimage, their compass set between wandering and witness, as they cross from ballfields and shipyards into the charged realms of myth and ritual. Evans's gift lies in how the ordinary gathers its own divinity: persimmon seeds split to forecast winter, a grandmother's weed-eater gospel, Camaro burnouts paired with tarot, psalms rising as pelicans wheel into sudden sky. In this light \u003ci\u003eNine Persimmons\u003c\/i\u003e reveals how the most unassuming corners of existence sometimes hold the deepest truths.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eThe Heavens Opened, and God Said\u003cbr\u003e 1\u003cbr\u003e The World\u003cbr\u003e The Photograph, Boy in Window\u003cbr\u003e A Bit of Luck\u003cbr\u003e Kickball Cowboy\u003cbr\u003e Metaphysical Citrus\u003cbr\u003e The French Horn\u003cbr\u003e Highway 45 Truck Stop\u003cbr\u003e Nine Persimmons\u003cbr\u003e After the Rain\u003cbr\u003e Winter in Georgia\u003cbr\u003e The Alley\u003cbr\u003e Sun \u0026amp;\u003cbr\u003e Moon\u003cbr\u003e 2\u003cbr\u003e The Sun King\u003cbr\u003e Changing a Truck Battery\u003cbr\u003e Coal\u003cbr\u003e Mississippi Snow\u003cbr\u003e Refrain\u003cbr\u003e The Minister of Macaroni\u003cbr\u003e My Younger Self Attempts Breakdancing at the Sadie Hawkins Dance\u003cbr\u003e Heat Index\u003cbr\u003e The Man in the Bucket\u003cbr\u003e The Beehive\u003cbr\u003e Tooth of the Lion\u003cbr\u003e Self-Portrait as Peach Orchard\u003cbr\u003e 3\u003cbr\u003e Manatee\u003cbr\u003e My Unborn\u003cbr\u003e Pulchrum est Paucorum Hominum\u003cbr\u003e Nectarine\u003cbr\u003e Field\u003cbr\u003e The High Priestess\u003cbr\u003e Maria\u003cbr\u003e Buffalo Rock\u003cbr\u003e The Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival, Grayson Highlands State Park\u003cbr\u003e “\u003cbr\u003eFantastic Pelicans Arrive”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Peninsula\u003cbr\u003e Medieval Meditation\u003cbr\u003e Holy\u003cbr\u003e Source Acknowledgments\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"The Backwaters Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52600322425112,"sku":"9781496243713","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/nine-persimmons-paperback-softback-9781496243713","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}