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Nine Persimmons

Brief Description
The Backwaters Prize in Poetry Honorable MentionIn Nine Persimmons Kerry James Evans traces a geography both intimate and far-flung—Tuscaloosa and Biloxi, Charleston and New Orleans, the Cloisters above Washington Heights, a banana orchard in the Azores, a journey to Rome. The poems move with the gravity... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$5268

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Kerry James Evans charts the jagged edges of family, longing, and place, capturing fleeting moments with an honesty that resonates across a lifetime.

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The Backwaters Prize in Poetry Honorable Mention

In Nine Persimmons Kerry James Evans traces a geography both intimate and far-flung—Tuscaloosa and Biloxi, Charleston and New Orleans, the Cloisters above Washington Heights, a banana orchard in the Azores, a journey to Rome. The poems move with the gravity of pilgrimage, their compass set between wandering and witness, as they cross from ballfields and shipyards into the charged realms of myth and ritual. Evans's gift lies in how the ordinary gathers its own divinity: persimmon seeds split to forecast winter, a grandmother's weed-eater gospel, Camaro burnouts paired with tarot, psalms rising as pelicans wheel into sudden sky. In this light Nine Persimmons reveals how the most unassuming corners of existence sometimes hold the deepest truths.

Series: The Backwaters Prize in Poetry Honorable Mention

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  • Nine Persimmons
    The Backwaters Prize in Poetry Honorable MentionIn Nine Persimmons Kerry James Evans traces a geography both intimate and far-flung—Tuscaloosa and Biloxi, Charleston and New Orleans, the Cloisters above Washington Heights, a banana orchard in the Azores, a journey to Rome. The poems move with the gravity of pilgrimage, their compass set between wandering and witness, as they cross from ballfields...
    Paperback
    $5268
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781496243713

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 March 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: University of Nebraska Press

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 84

About the Author

Kerry James Evans is an associate professor of English at Georgia College and State University, where he coordinates the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs. He is the author of the poetry collection Bangalore. A recipient of a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, his poems have appeared in AGNI, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He is the coeditor and managing editor of Peach.

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