Felon: Poems

Product Description
A searing volume by a poet whose work conveys the visceral effect that prison has on identity (New York Times).
Felon tells the story of one man in fierce, dazzling poems canvassing his wide range of emotions and experiences through homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and grace and, in doing so, creates a travelogue for an imagined life. Reginald Dwayne Betts confronts the funk of postincarceration existence and examines prison not as a static space, but as a force that enacts pressure throughout a person s life. Challenging the complexities of language, Betts animates what it means to be a felon.
From Night
What she tells me: prison killed youmy love, killed you so dead that you re nothere now, you re never here, you re always.
About the Author
Reginald Dwayne Betts has had his poetry published in many national literary journals and contributed an essay to Marita Golden's anthology It's All Love. He has been awarded the Holden Fellowship from the MFA program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. A Cave Canem fellow, his poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere.