Zion , the latest collection of poems by TJ Jarrett, is the poignant study of the resonating effects of the civil rights movement on one family. Jarrett lovingly explores the minutiae of mortality and race across three generations of “Dark Girls” who have come together one summer to grieve and to remember as one of them passes to the farther shore—a place beyond retribution, where there is only forgiveness.
The Mississippi of Jarrett’s collection is alive with fireflies and locusts and murders of crows; yet for some, it is a wasteland of unanswered prayers, burning evenings, and the shades of dead or disappeared loved ones. There, the dark nights of the soul weigh long and heavy, and “every heart has its solstice, and its ache is unrelenting.”
Yet much as every solstice has an equinox, every time to kill has a time to forgive. Throughout the volume, the author imagines opportunities for compassion on multiple levels, from sweeping pardons to the most intimate of mercies. Jarrett’s faceless narrator confesses the past through conversation and exploration with notorious Mississippi governor Theodore Bilbo: two minds, two hearts, two races at last face to face.
At once brutal and achingly tender, Jarrett’s volume itself is a vibrant and musical body, singing to all its parts.
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upload/motw_shc_2025_10/shc/Zion - Tj Jarrett.pdf

motw/Zion - Tj Jarrett.pdf

Zion : poems

Jarrett, TJ;

Crab Orchard award series in poetry, Carbondale, Illinois, 2014

Book collections on Project MUSE, Carbondale, 2014

United States, United States of America

1st, First Edition, PS, 2014

Sep 18, 2014

producers:
Adobe PDF Library 10.0.1

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Source title: Zion (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry)

Crab Orchard Series in Poetry
Cover 1
Title Page 4
Copyright 5
Contents 10
One 12
My Grandmother Describes the Radiance 14
At the Hospital 15
Theodore Bilbo Attends My Sickbed 16
Meridian, MS 1978: Miss Polly Attends the Altar at Mt. Zion 17
The Body Sings to All Its Parts 18
When They Say You Can’t Go Home 19
Meridian, Last Night 20
How to Love the Country of Your Birth 21
Theodore Bilbo Begins His Confession 23
Two 26
How a Question Becomes a Lie 28
Theodore Bilbo and I Reverse the Miracle 29
Miss Polly Experiences the Consequences of Gravity 30
The Precipitating Event 31
Meridian, MS 1958: My Grandmother Meditates on the Miracles of the Christ 32
1973: My Mother Cleaves Herself in Two 33
How We Arrived 34
Meridian, MS 1951: Vice in Proper Form 35
Along the Way to Dockery Farms 36
In the Years Following Rescue 37
Three 38
What I Did in My Time Away from Words 40
Meridian, MS 1963: My Mother Considers the Mechanics of Flight 41
I Begin My Confession 42
The Burgomaster Said I Could Do Whatever I Wanted to You 43
Theodore Bilbo and I Begin Our Crossing 44
How the Past Tense Turns a Whole Sentence Dark 45
Everything Men Know about Women 46
The Peonies at the Bodega 48
Consolation 50
We Are Soldiers in the Army of the Lord 51
Theodore Bilbo & I Consider the End of Days 52
And through the Dark 54
Theodore Bilbo and I Take Tea on the Veranda 56
The Living Always Chase the Dead 57
Four 58
Okatibbee River 2012 60
On Bathing Her Mother 61
Theodore Bilbo and I Survey the Ruin 62
My Grandfather Appears to Me on the Eve of My Grandmother’s Passing 64
This Is How I Love Her 66
After Forty Days, Go Marry Again 67
Theodore Bilbo Mistakes Me for the Angel of Death 69
Kyrie: Notes to the God I Cannot See 70
The Trouble with Lightning 71
Meridian, MS 1964: They Moaned So Much They Called It Song 72
Meridian, MS 1964: At the Solstice, the World Is Flooded with Light 73
Theodore Bilbo and I Survey the Contours of Zion 74
Five 76
At the Repast 78
What We Find at the End of the World 79
How to Love the Country of Your Birth 80
Theodore Bilbo and I Wander the Farther Shore 81
How to Grieve 82
Theodore Bilbo and I Wait Out the Storm 83
Theodore Bilbo and I at Last Turn Face to Face 84
Acknowledgments 86
Other Books in the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry 87
Back Cover 89
Open,Competition,Award
Open Competition Award

This latest collection of poems by T.J. Jarrett, is the poignant study of the resonating effects of the Civil Rights Movement on one family. Jarrett lovingly explores the minutiae of mortality and race across three generations who have come together one summer to grieve and to remember as one of them passes to the farther shore-a place beyond retribution-where there is only forgiveness.

2025-10-27