Nine Persimmons

by Kerry James Evans

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 and shipyards into the charged realms of myth and ritual. Evans’s gift lies in how the ordinary gathers its own 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.

84 pages, Paperback

Expected publication March 1, 2026

Reviews

[Nicole Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nine Persimmons" by Kerry James Evans is astounding. The first poem, "The Heavens Opened, and God Said," explodes off the page; I finished it, breathless, and then read it again. And a third time. "All endings, even mine, will be yours. [...] You are like a branch/ that has forgotten the trunk,/ a bird in a lightning storm,/ waves lingering at the shore./ I am sand. I am the wave, the wind,/ the red flag whipping a blue sky./ Would you believe me if I said/ you and I are both blue sky?" "Coal" made me think of Dian Gilliam's collection "Kettle Bottom" and the unforgiving work of miners and the dangers they face every minute of their shifts. "The World" is a history of a life. The gorgeous poem "After the Rain" paints the mind with color and birdsong, and "Fantastic Pelicans Arrive" begins with a touch of whimsy, and then brought me to tears. I cannot say enough about this book. It is absolutely beautiful.

[Anastey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley and Kerry James Evans for sending me this advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I enjoyed this one. The writing style was fantastic, and it was impossible to put down as each line pulled you to the next and wouldn't let you go.

There were so many emotions about childhood, growing up and being an adult, family, and going through hard times. There is a lot of pain, barely surviving, flat out bad stuff, but also glimmers of good things as well.

One of the lines that hit me the hardest was "These teachers knew enough of the world, knew most of us were doomed to the trailer plant to the vfw". I live in rural OK, and it's often like that here as well. This a hard book to read, because it's very raw and bleak a lot of the time. It makes you really feel what it is like to live barely scraping by day by day.

Unfortunately the third section felt like it didn't fit with the rest of the book. It was a lot more random and a bit strange. It had a completely different vibe, almost cheerful compared to the other two sections.

Overall I loved this book, and it's one I would read again.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thanks to the U of NE Press and NetGalley for the eARC of this title, to be published March 1, 2026.
This short collection is split into 3 sections. I rather loved the first 2, which were about his hard scrabble life in the South, from childhood to being a young adult. The third section left me a bit cold, with poems mostly connected to High Culture. Many of the poems throughout are almost prose works, some even being blocks of text, similar to a paragraph.
I do wish dates had been included for each poem, as there does seem to have been a major shift in his writing, and subject, at some point in his writing career. His only other collection is "Bangalore" (2013, Copper Canyon). So this appears to be a collection of about 12 years worth of creativity.
The collection won Honorable Mention of the U of NE Press' Backwaters Press Poetry Prize in 2025. Backwaters was a small press in Omaha, which the U of NE Press purchased in 2018. The prize, for a collection of poetry 60-85 pages, began in 1998. It was suspended from 2005-2011. The focus was on Midwest poets, although Evans is from the South (Southeast).
Again, this almost felt like two different poets between 1-2 and 3. The first, with its gritty depiction of a life in poverty in the South, gets a 4 out of 5 for me. The last section, which feels more "academic", a 2.

[Ayesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an eARC.

By far one of the best poetry books I’ve read this year. Nicely done and I would recommend reading it.