This book of poetry chronicles all the poetry fit to print from the last two years writing. It covers an immense amount of experience: mental health, love found and lost, persona poems, life on the river, family histories, ekphrastic poetry and poetry for the revolution.
reviews:
"Poet and artist Jeanette Powers is a force of nature whose bold and vibrant poetry defies categorization. Their poems span a rich expanse of themes and emotions: deep philosophy coexists with absurdist fun, delightful storytelling with radical social critique. Their voice has a range as wide as the spectrum between Zen and Punk rock. Honest, vulnerable, direct and unapologetic, their poems provoke and enchant, amuse and shock. Hearing Powers read is an experience. An incredible performer, they captivate their audience and can move them to laughter, anger, or tears. "
--Agnes Vojta, author of Porous Land
"Jeanette Powers is a house full of flowers. One room with wide windows to let in the poetry, long warm hallways for the paintings, and all over this house are tiny tables perfect for tea, perfect for conversation. This house is strong. This house is foundational. This house asks you to come as you are. Jeanette is the kind of artist we need more of, where the line blurs between where their art ends and their community building begins."
--Brice Maiurro, author of Hero Victim Villain
"Jeanette Powers taps into that secret connection of honesty, verve, and imagination. That chasm of innocence that is disrupted by the nuclear speed of everything, where the very reason we read, explore and hear poetry lives."
--RA Washington, author of Body
"Everyone else reads, and then Jeanette gets up and performs. The audience and I are transfixed by their performance, the perfect changes in voice, speed, movement and expression. Not only can Jeanette write! but their performances freeze and alter time, taking the audience deep inside themselves and into the story. It is amazing to see. "
--Hugh Merrill, internationally renowned printmaker & social practice artist
"Reading Jeanette’s poetry is like interacting with the deep, raw voice of someone’s own soul; you can’t walk away from their poetry without the sensation of your bones being rattled by their truth. It’s powerful, it’s real, it’s intricate, and it’s undeniably Jeanette. The book is an entrancing collection of the bizzare, the abstract, the immensely personal, delightful wild sparkle horse rainbows, and the individual spiritual. Their art is, without question, the most true expression of themselves and you can see it."
--Elim J. Sidus, artist and illustrator
bio:
Jeanette Powers is a non-binary queer artist, working class anarchist and swimmer of rivers. They can be found petting stray cats and wishing on the first star of the night wherever there are nights and cats. As long as the clouds are clear. Powers has been published widely as a poet, and Victimless Crime is their first novel. They ran a generative performing arts venue in Kansas City MO for six years, facilitating hundreds of live, original shows before gentrification ran the artists out and Powers became a Dandylion Riot. This is because the powers-that-be can pave the world and artists will endlessly crack the pavement, sending their green shoots, bright sunlight flowers and wish-worthy seeds across the gray. No one can stop dandylions. They are also the founding editor of Stubborn Mule Press and an organizer for FountainVerse: KC Small Press Poetry Festival. Follow them on IG @dandylion_riot .
