Nine Persimmons (The Backwaters Prize in Poetry Honorable Mention) - Softcover

Kerry James Evans

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1496243714 ISBN 13: 9781496243713

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2026

Synopsis

The Backwaters Prize in Poetry Honorable MentionIn Nine Persimmons Kerry James Evans traces a geography both intimate and far-flung—Tuscaloosa and Biloxi, Charleston and New Orleans, the Cloisters above Washington Heights, a banana orchard in the Azores, a journey to Rome. The poems move with the gravity of pilgrimage, their compass set between wandering and witness, as they cross from ballfields and shipyards into the charged realms of myth and ritual. Evans's gift lies in how the ordinary gathers its own divinity: persimmon seeds split to forecast winter, a grandmother's weed-eater gospel, Camaro burnouts paired with tarot, psalms rising as pelicans wheel into sudden sky. In this light Nine Persimmons reveals how the most unassuming corners of existence sometimes hold the deepest truths.

About this title

About the Author

Kerry James Evans is an associate professor of English at Georgia College and State University, where he coordinates the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs. He is the author of the poetry collection Bangalore. A recipient of a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, his poems have appeared in AGNI, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He is the coeditor and managing editor of Peach.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496243714
• ISBN 13: 9781496243713
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 84