You've Changed - Softcover

Byrd, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0997643641 ISBN 13: 9780997643640

Publisher: Mezcalita Press, LLC, 2017

Synopsis

You’ve Changed is a collection of poetry that was born over seven years of working on a novel. I may work on the novel for another seven years or another seventy.

A song can be held in the mind whole as you work on it. Only so much can happen in a song, or at least only so much can be said about it. To be fair, each word carries more weight. Still, a novelist is obligated to come up with a minimum of forty thousand words that can grip the modern attention span for at least an afternoon. Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” has thirty-four words and is done before you can plunge your French press.

To maintain a sense of wonder and play in this highly-disciplined writing environment, I created exercises for myself. I would remove time. I would introduce two characters from different books. I would tell a modern story using only words from Genesis. Mostly they were weird little monsters I shared with my friends on the internet. But some were very moving. Some made me cry or laugh out loud. Some still do, even just now proofreading the latest version. Somehow my heart got into it.

This is the magic of art. I show up and do things every day. Suddenly one day my hand says something my heart has been trying to say for years. It feels as if a cog has moved inside me. As if my internal machinery has wheeled forward another inch in its specific mission, a mission that is maddeningly hidden from me inside the ink of a thousand hotel pens.

You’ve Changed is a seven-year journey of inches. I didn’t even know I was making a book and now you may be holding it. Please take your time with it. It’s magic after all

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan Byrd is a preacher's son, Gulf War veteran, and popular songwriter known for reworking the roots of American music into ballads that border on literature. Born on a Friday the 13th in November 1970, Byrd is a seventh generation native of North Carolina, though he has lived in Texas, Virginia, Germany, and various latitudes at sea. Jonathan keeps a busy schedule touring the US, Canada, Europe, and the United Kingdom. He calls Chapel Hill, North Carolina home. You've Changed is his first book of poetry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mezcalita Press, LLC
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0997643641
• ISBN 13: 9780997643640
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 90