BLOODMERCY
I.S. Jones
APR/Honickman First Book Prize winner
Copper Canyon, 2025
Ah what an urgent patience is given an anxious peace by the immediate vision of I.S. Jones as versed in holy thematics that pin nostalgia to a renamed surrounding. Our place in common is Bloodmercy, a ghost psalm that kings a father’s absence, and a landmark that earns its place with celestial hardness, wicked accuracy, and remnant reminiscence. Existence can’t solve the living. Twin butchers climb too high the tree of boredom. Bloodmercy is a work that occurs in the genesis of again. Oh how sound ages want. Oh how a mouth prays to itself to know its shape. Debone, in the reading, in the aftermath of Abel’s bent childhood of straightened witness, the belonged body. Killing doesn’t cure murder. Sisterhood is a shelter stormed by pattern. Abuse a scarecrow of bored angels. Violence leaves history to those arriving. What Jones reimagines beats us to the dream.
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