Browse A-Z Authors: Pa-Pd

Poems; 26 pages. "The poems in this fine collection view love as both a desire and a dilemma, the kind of passion found in other poets willing to confront the heart with such honesty, namely Neruda. If desire is ever perfect, it is only perfect once—and then what? That last flicker of a question is a sharp yet satisfying pang running through these poems. Meanwhile, behind the intensity shared by two, we have the wider world, which is either indifferent or falling apart. These poems are not simply wise or desperate—they are both at once." —Maurice Manning. "In Jeremy Paden's work, a finely-tuned intellect and a capacious heart join forces, so that precision and craft are brought to bear on a gorgeous lyrical extravagance, giving us poems that are at once graceful and surprising, unabashedly romantic and unashamedly erudite, sensual and sharp, flowers growing from the cracks in stone." —Cecilia Woloch. Reviews from the author's website.

Poetry; 29 pages. Latinx Studies. Jeremy Paden returns with a new chapbook of poems imagining the lives of people trapped in darkness, in this case the man-made darkness of political imprisonment in Chile and Argentina. Inspired in substance by stories told by Fernando Reati, and in style by the Argentine poet Juan Gelman, Paden provides an unflinching and harrowing account of survival in the face of the most extreme brutality (carried out by regimes, let us not forget, abetted by the US and other Western powers), of the means by which prisoners sustain not only the body, but the spirit. Accounts of making "sock cheese," of bread pudding flavored by strawberry toothpaste, or the necessity of extracting every virtue from a single lemon, emerge as recipes for resistance. In one poem Paden asks, "can a songbird sing in a vacuum"? This little volume is the answer: Yes, they sing, but they can only be heard if those of us on the outside will echo their songs as loudly and long as we can. And we must.

Poetry; 35 pages. Latinx Studies. For sixty-nine days in 2010 the world held its collective breath while thirty-three men were trapped deep in a copper mine in Chile. The story of their survival and rescue is by now well-known, but through the poetry and imagination of Jeremy Paden the intimate humanity of this modern-day resurrection is rendered with exquisite feeling for the miners below and their loved ones above. Many of the individual miners appear here in poems inspired by their specific stories. But as suggested by the title, (a term coined by Pliny to describe Roman hydraulic gold mining and its effect on the land) this is also a meditation on our relationship to our planet.

In World As Sacred Burning Heart, Jeremy Paden offers a collection of poems set in Colonial Latin America that weaves together three strands. There are prose poems about Captains like Columbus, Cortés, and Las Casas that play with the language and syntax of sixteenth-century chronicles. These poems use irony to interrogate the official story. The second strand is ekphrastic poems on maps, on quipus, on Aztec featherwork mosaics, and other cultural objects. The third strand is poems of resistance and poems of coming into knowledge. To live in the American hemisphere is to live in a colonial state. These poems examine and interrogate that legacy. They respond to the self-aggrandizing myths the Western world tells itself about its own past. This collection argues that America (North and South) is a palimpsest, a layered story, born out of colonial occupation and resistance. Ultimately, these poems ask two urgent questions: can we live with “the madness/of finally knowing who we are?” and “how do we sing a song that remembers the world into wholeness?” -Taos Press

"Precious things are worth a thousand-mile walk, Mija?" Las cosas precioas valen una caminata de mil millas, mija?" from Under the Ocelot SunSpoken by a mother to her small daughter as they are detained at a border wall, Under the Ocelot Sun is a powerful account of refugees' plight. The mother speaks of the beauty of their Honduran homeland and of her abuela's wisdom. She also touches on the violent forces they are fleeing. She wants her little one to know her heritage and why they have taken this perilous journey. Lyrically told (in English and Spanish) and vibrantly illustrated, this is a picture book for our time. George Ella Lyon, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2015-2016About the title: The Ocelot Sun refers to the Nahua creation myth of the Five Suns. Each sun corresponds to an age, or a creation event. The Nahui-Ocelotl is the first sun, or first creation event. At that time, the world was ruled by giants and the gods sent ocelots or jaguars to destroy the earth and start again. Under the Ocelot Sun is a story of hope and survival in times of trouble.

The Appalachian region stretches from Mississippi to New York, encompassing rural areas as well as cities from Birmingham to Pittsburgh. Though Appalachia's people are as diverse as its terrain, few other regions in America are as burdened with stereotypes. Author Frank X Walker coined the term "Affrilachia" to give identity and voice to people of African descent from this region and to highlight Appalachia's multicultural identity. This act inspired a group of gifted artists, the Affrilachian Poets, to begin working together and using their writing to defy persistent stereotypes of Appalachia as a racially and culturally homogenized region. After years of growth, honors, and accomplishments, the group is acknowledging its silver anniversary with Black Bone. Edited by two newer members of the Affrilachian Poets, Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Jeremy Paden, Black Bone is a beautiful collection of both new and classic work and features submissions from Frank X Walker, Nikky Finney, Gerald Coleman, Crystal Wilkinson, Kelly Norman Ellis, and many others. This illuminating and powerful collection is a testament to a groundbreaking group and its enduring legacy.

Poems; 122 pages.

Poems; 162 pages.

Poems, 177 pages.

Poems; 181 pages.

Poems; 221 pages.

A history of Kentucky's poets laureate since 1926. Contains works by J.T. Cotton Noe, Edward Gay Hill, Louise Scott Phillips, Edwin Carlisle Litsey, Jesse Hilton Stuart, Lowell Allen Williams, Lillian D. Chaffin, Senator Tom Mobley, Agnes Todd Saffell O'Rear, Clarence "Soc" Henry Clay, Lee Pennington, Paul Salyers, Dale Faughn, Jim Wayne Miller, Henry E. Pilkenton, James H. Patton, James Still, Joy Bale Boone, Richard Lawrence Taylor, James Baker Hall and Joe Survant.