Books by Shawn

 

My poetry collection, Date of Birth, is forthcoming from Persea Books in the spring of 2023!

 

A Hole to Breathe (Finishing Line Press 2015)

Like Shawn Jones herself, these poems are surprising and smart. In “Jezebel on the Mantel,” for example, the narrator is driving the ashes of a grandmother nobody liked to toss in the ocean. And it’s not just granny, these poems are crackling with other interesting folks: Spittin Willie who “danced drunk with his cart full of junk,” Flimflam Susie who has “red gooey lips” and “jambalaya hips”…and “gargoyle men with hungry eyes and swollen guts.” A Hole to Breathe is a pleasure to read, but beware. It is a slender volume. When you finish it, you may find yourself “jonesing” for more.   ~ Peter E. Murphy, founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University

 

 

Womb Rain  (Finishing Line Press 2008)

An auspicious debut. These vivid cameos pulse with genealogy and family history. Shawn Jones confesses, laments, expiates, calls to account, testifies, and emblematizes flesh as memory, witness, totem, and curse. Despite murder, sexual molestation, poverty, drug addiction, adultery, and the absent father’s haunting presence, Womb Rain honors one woman’s quest for spiritual solace and self-affirmation.   ~Dr. Charles H. Lynch