Stranger on Earth

“Jones writes brief, simple poems about isolated incidents while gracefully alluding to the complex relationships underlying them.” — Publishers Weekly

“Skillful, direct, and surprisingly delicate.” — The Village Voice

“A poet of uncommon perceptual gifts.” — Library Journal

In Stranger on Earth , distinguished poet, critic, and editor Richard Jones summonses Proustian detail as he reflects on his childhood, past adventure, married life, and first love. Jones writes with great serenity of soul as he constructs a false autobiography: highlighting travels to London and Paris; the separation, contemplation and reunion with his wife in the Italian countryside; morning tea with his daughter and running with his sons; flights with a pioneering aviator father and conversations with a deaf mother. These poems are an intimate, sometimes unreliable map of his life as a son, husband, and father.

From “The Flight to Madrid”:

This little blue rag on my desk is all that’s left of the blue shirt
I wore in Charlottesville when as a student I haunted the cramped and musty stacks,
looking for something
I didn’t know

Richard Jones has published eleven books of poetry and his poems have been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He is the founder and editor of Poetry East, and he teaches at DePaul University in Chicago, where he lives with his family.