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James Kimbrell
Poet / Translator / Earthling

"Smote is a book of the dark reality of our daily existence; it is a book of abiding grace."

—Robert Olen Butler

"Kimbrell's poems will doubtless come crashing back as unexpected, haunting nodes of language."

—Publishers Weekly

"A consoling look at grief and the impossibly hopeful ways people can strike back at it."
--JohnDeming , Coldfront Magazine

“Kimbrell helps us see into the mysteries and losses that haunt our world—primal, incessant, hidden, and true as ‘fog rising from our wordless mouths.’”—David Baker

"Kimbrell sings a serious song. . . . The poems are deft and sure, there is a sense of vision in them, and I have the feeling that this is the start of something significant."

--from the Foreword by Charles Wright

"In his debut collection, Kimbrell revisits the mysterious landscapes of childhood and returns with poems that fathom meaning yet retain a sense of awe. The book's title section, a poignant ten-part poem, portrays a son's lifelong struggle to connect with a father made absent by mental and physical illness: "It's quite/The wonder, what madness can do for a man,//Much more than me

far below the harsh light of heaven/Down here, in the make-shift center of this world."

James Kimbrell Poet / Translator / Earthling

"A consoling look at grief and the impossibly hopeful ways people can strike back at it." --JohnDeming , Coldfront Magazine

“Kimbrell helps us see into the mysteries and losses that haunt our world—primal, incessant, hidden, and true as ‘fog rising from our wordless mouths.’”—David Baker

Contact James Kimbrell

James Kimbrell
Poet / Translator / Earthling

"A consoling look at grief and the impossibly hopeful ways people can strike back at it."
--JohnDeming , Coldfront Magazine

Contact
James Kimbrell