Zion

by T.J. Jarrett

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.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

TJ Jarrett is a writer and software developer in Nashville, Tennessee. Her recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Poetry, African American Review, Boston Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, DIAGRAM, Third Coast, VQR, West Branch and others.

She has earned scholarships from Colrain Manuscript Conference, Sewanee Writer’s Conference and Vermont Studio Center; a fellowship from the Summer Literary Seminars 2012; a runner up for the 2012 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize and 2012 New Issues Poetry Prize; and her collection The Moon Looks Down and Laughs was selected as a finalist for the 2010 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry.

Her debut collection Ain’t No Grave is published with New Issues Press (2013).

Her second collection Zion (winner of the Crab Orchard Open Competition 2013) will be published by Southern Illinois University Press in the fall of 2014.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes for Let: The narrative here is never made explicit, so there's bound to be some sense of the kind manner in the reticence, and mistaken for that, politeness. Substitute for that ethos, the mixing of voices, the irony in the refusal of the historical text. I've got no bother with the ethos; it's the verse-making that follows suit that can make the reading perhaps too readerly. Till I don't know what I'm reading.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is simply one of the best books of poems I've read in a long time. The word 'powerful' is perhaps overused to describe poetry when one doesn't know what else to say, or how the author accomplished his or her effects. But I use it here because often I found myself almost overpowered by the voice, the control, the passion, the wit and the bravery of these poems.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poetry collection is phenomenal, participating in part of a larger Black Christian tradition and the kind of non-violent approach to civil rights work codified in American public memory in "I Have a Dream" era Martin Luther King. A large number of these poems center around the narrator's imagined relationship with Klansman and senator Theodore Bilbo, as well as poems set in Meridian, Mississippi at various points in time. Jarrett's poems in this collection feel like meditations. Each is rich in thought, provocative but never esoteric.

[Monika Iszard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a GOODREADS FIRST READS winner book

I really enjoyed this book. I felt that the author poured her heart in writing this. I could feel the emotion that she was expressing and it made me feel what she was feeling.. I found this book to be engrossing and I finished it in one setting. I felt that the author expressed all her emotions into this book and that it seemed that it was a wave of victory to let those emotions free. I would recommended this book to anyone that likes to feel that they are feeling what the author feels.

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poems in TJ Jarrett's Zion are terrific, interlinked lyrics exploring the legacy of race and the Civil Rights movement in the microcosm of one family. Sometimes the fragmentary nature of the poems works in the large scale, sometimes, though, the missing connective tissue is noticable. That doesn't take away from the overall strengths of the poems themselves or Jarrett's skill as a poet, but rather as a collection in and of itself.

[Rachel | All the RAD Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had picked up this little book of poetry at Parnassus in Nashville this summer and forgotten about it, but I’m SO glad I read it now. This book addresses race, cultural tension, relationships, and politics in a way that is moving and so beautiful. I flagged several of these poems to return to again, because the language is rich and I so loved soaking up the snippets of stories told here so powerfully.

[Erica Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This amazing collection deserves a more thorough review, but I want to at least say how moved I was by these poems. I kept rereading sections, marveling at the precision of language then losing myself to the insights. "In the Years Following Rescue" begins with this line: "I was drowning. I had been drowning all of my life." You want to read all of Zion now, right? I hope so.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book! Worth every page! This is a book I will read multiple times just to grasp everything that goes on. Won via Goodreads Giveaway.