Finding Fruit Among Thorns

Christie Grimes' book, Finding Fruit Among Thorns, is an exploration of the meanings of home, a place she finds in Texas and upstate New York and in family and love. These are beautiful, heartfelt American poems imbued with the colors of rural Texas landscape. The poet leaves you feeling you know the characters in her narrative poems as well as you know your own family and childhood friends. She manages to find that moment of incredible grace in the midst of regret and loss. This book is so alive. I love it!

Maria Mazziotti Gillan winner of the American Book Award and author of The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets

If poems had blisters and backaches, these would. The people Christie Grimes describes here don't ski in Switzerland or sun on the Riviera. They drive through little Texas towns like Alvin and Cuero with gun racks in their truck windows. They remember softball games, deer hunts, the death of parents; they think about first dates, first kisses, and all the kisses that follow. The warmth of the sun and the grit of the soil is in these poems. You get the impression they were written out by hand, slowly and with love, and they need to be read the same way.

David Kirby nominee for the National Book Award and author of Get Up, Please

Those of you who have had a chance to read Christie Grimes' chapbook, Last to Leave, which was released last fall, know that she has an amazing voice in her poetry that spans the US experience, from her hometown in Texas through all of the travels that eventually led her to her current life in northern New York. Following on from that powerful collection, Jane's Boy is proud to present Christie's debut full-length collection, Finding Fruit Among Thorns. In this solid collection of powerful poetry, you'll find moments among family and friends on back roads and in bar rooms, along coastlines and in the heartland. As always, each poem is filled with deep insight, rich imagery, and and the heart of a true poet chronicling the travels of her life.