New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2013 Paper: 978-1-936970-18-6 Library of Congress Classification PS3610.A7725A6 2013 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
TJ Jarrett is a writer and software developer in Nashville, Tennessee. Her recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Poetry, African American Review, Boston Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, DIAGRAM, Third Coast, VQR, West Branch and others.
She has earned scholarships from Colrain Manuscript Conference and Vermont Studio Center; fellowships from Sewanee Writer’s Conference 2014 and the Summer Literary Seminars 2012 and 2014; winner of VQR’s Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry 2014; a runner up for the 2012 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize and 2012 New Issues Poetry Prize; and her collection The Moon Looks Down and Laughs was selected as a finalist for the 2010 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. She has been anthologized in Language Lessons by Third Man Books and Best American Non-Required Reading 2015 from Houghton-Mifflin and others.
She was awarded the 2017 George Garrett New Writing Award by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Her debut collection Ain’t No Grave (finalist for the 2013 Balcones Prize) was published with New Issues Press (2013).
Her second collection Zion (winner of the Crab Orchard Open Competition 2013) was published by Southern Illinois University Press in the fall of 2014.
REVIEWS
'From somewhere between Phillis Wheatley's sly use of iambs and Jupiter Hammon's collisions with the supernatural, comes TJ Jarrett's commitment to narrative lyrics that question the dead and death itself. But these poems are much more staunchly Southern in their drawl and drawing out, or as Jarrett herself might say, they make for a 'steady/reach into the body, emerging with its fruit/tight and tender as peaches...' This is a stunning debut from a poet who has already begun to re-read and rewrite the Bible itself.'' —Jericho Brown
'These poems go incredibly deep. They stun us with the richness and pain of love and Darkness. Ain't No Grave confronts America's horrific legacy of racism in a voice that addresses the eternal, a fierce voice, yet not without tenderness. Some of the most moving poems I've read about family also live between these covers. The poems' seriousness does not diminish their wit, or their sensuality. A holy inner strength and tireless questioning guide these poems, and a(n)... insistent beauty that makes them kin to prayer.'' —Amy Gerstler
“Here is a voice of complete authority: I think of Willa Cather in all her fullness of range and depth, her grief, sureness of step, and ease with life's own half-familiar withholdings. TJ Jarrett pierces the listener with her new—seemingly accustomed, but new unsettlings; I was more lonely before I heard this voice.”—Jean Valentine
New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2013 Paper: 978-1-936970-18-6
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
TJ Jarrett is a writer and software developer in Nashville, Tennessee. Her recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Poetry, African American Review, Boston Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, DIAGRAM, Third Coast, VQR, West Branch and others.
She has earned scholarships from Colrain Manuscript Conference and Vermont Studio Center; fellowships from Sewanee Writer’s Conference 2014 and the Summer Literary Seminars 2012 and 2014; winner of VQR’s Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry 2014; a runner up for the 2012 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize and 2012 New Issues Poetry Prize; and her collection The Moon Looks Down and Laughs was selected as a finalist for the 2010 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. She has been anthologized in Language Lessons by Third Man Books and Best American Non-Required Reading 2015 from Houghton-Mifflin and others.
She was awarded the 2017 George Garrett New Writing Award by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Her debut collection Ain’t No Grave (finalist for the 2013 Balcones Prize) was published with New Issues Press (2013).
Her second collection Zion (winner of the Crab Orchard Open Competition 2013) was published by Southern Illinois University Press in the fall of 2014.
REVIEWS
'From somewhere between Phillis Wheatley's sly use of iambs and Jupiter Hammon's collisions with the supernatural, comes TJ Jarrett's commitment to narrative lyrics that question the dead and death itself. But these poems are much more staunchly Southern in their drawl and drawing out, or as Jarrett herself might say, they make for a 'steady/reach into the body, emerging with its fruit/tight and tender as peaches...' This is a stunning debut from a poet who has already begun to re-read and rewrite the Bible itself.'' —Jericho Brown
'These poems go incredibly deep. They stun us with the richness and pain of love and Darkness. Ain't No Grave confronts America's horrific legacy of racism in a voice that addresses the eternal, a fierce voice, yet not without tenderness. Some of the most moving poems I've read about family also live between these covers. The poems' seriousness does not diminish their wit, or their sensuality. A holy inner strength and tireless questioning guide these poems, and a(n)... insistent beauty that makes them kin to prayer.'' —Amy Gerstler
“Here is a voice of complete authority: I think of Willa Cather in all her fullness of range and depth, her grief, sureness of step, and ease with life's own half-familiar withholdings. TJ Jarrett pierces the listener with her new—seemingly accustomed, but new unsettlings; I was more lonely before I heard this voice.”—Jean Valentine
