Preliminary Report

Jon Davis

Punctuated by subversive humor, verbal theatrics, and moments of strange, luminous beauty, Jon Davis’s clear, unsentimental poems are meditations on contemporary existence and the unreliability of language, emotion, and memory to gather it all in. In short personal lyrics, prose poems, and long meditative pieces, Davis writes about subjects as various as global politics, philosophy, mysticism, love, and family.

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ISBN: 9781556593154

Format: Paperback

Adolescence

For the lucky, it’s years spent
spinning the frantic wheel
of a carnival bumper car,
 
lights swirling, the buzzing
and rumbling, sparking
and zapping, intent only
 
on causing the surprising
crash, the ram and counterram,
spun wheel, sudden surge
 
in reverse, the steady stare-down,
head-jerk, one car after
another until you find yourself
 
targeting the bare legs
of the college kid, his back
turned to unstick a clot
 
of stuck cars, bearing down,
full speed now, the humming
in your head now, until
 
the power dies and you stop
dead at his sneakered feet
and smile primly up—

About the Author

Jon Davis is the author of five chapbooks and six full-length poetry collections. The Bloomsbury Review said of his collection Preliminary Report: “This is one of the best books of poetry to appear this year.” He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including a Lannan Literary Award, the Peter I. B. Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Off the Grid Poetry Prize, and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. He taught for twenty-three years at …

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Reviews

“Davis is as good as DeLillo at playing off our internal hunger for meaning against surface senselessness. And Davis catches the surface brilliantly.” —American Book Review

“[Davis’s work has] an intellectual and moral urgency… Although Davis is not a religious poet, he shares Rilke’s quest for union [and] seeks an awareness that only multiple points of view can provide.” —The Prose Poem: An International Journal

“Davis’s… voice remains among the sharpest and most unique in contemporary poetry.” —The Independent