The
Weather of Dreams, Poems by J.E. Pitts
“We
do not take note of the weather of dreams / But it is always there,”
writes J. E. Pitts in his first collection of poems, The
Weather of Dreams. Pitts serves as a faithful, patient guide
to what we do not take note of: “a trail now through the woods/where
there was no trail”; “a stream where water/was never told
to flow.” Step by step, the reader’s sense of the world,
and our place in it, is lovingly enlarged by Pitts’ graceful lines.
Sample Poems by J.E. Pitts
“J.E. Pitts’ The Weather
of Dreams is at once accessible, unpretentious, spontaneous and
unpredictable as outsider art. Operating beyond the walls of the
academy, this poet is equally at home amid both nature and culture,
and addresses the frail and fleeting essence of our lives. As
he writes in ‘Getting Back to Nature,’ ‘There is a
trail now through the woods/where there was no trail.’ Those
who follow his footsteps will find the journey stimulating and satisfying.”
–R. T. Smith, author of The
Cardinal Heart, Trespasser, and Brightwood
“Pitts is a poet who befriends his reader. He shows us a little
girl mailing a valentine, and returns us to the excitement of childhood.
He takes us on a tour of the battlefield at Shiloh, and shares his clarities
of perception and language, amazed at the battle itself and our pleasure
in visiting the site. The Weather
of Dreams is a book filled with nuances of amazement and delight.”
–Brooks Haxton, author of Dominion,
Traveling Company, and The
Sun at Night
“I think J. E. Pitts would be a poet if you shut him up in a room
or left him out in the yard in the dark for a very long time. Far better
though to meet him in the pages of this precise, faithful, mordant collection.
Because now he has readers. And any poet who ends a poem with
‘And that the mullet will live forever,’ deserves to be
read.” —Mairéad Byrne, author of Nelson
& The Huruburu Bird and
Talk Poetry
J. E. Pitts is a writer and visual artist. His poems, essays,
and illustrations have appeared in many magazines and literary journals.
A graduate of the University of Mississippi, he is the Poetry Editor
of The Oxford American, co-founded
and co-edits the experimental literary journal VOX, and lives
in Oxford, Mississippi. He was awarded a Literary Fellowship in Poetry
from the Mississippi Arts Commission in 2006. The
Weather of Dreams is his first book.
ISBN 978-1933456577, 80 pages, $17.00