Jesse Graves was born and raised in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, where his ancestors settled in the 1780s. His poems and essays have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Southern Quarterly, Connecticut Review, and other journals, anthologies, and collections. He teaches at East Tennessee State University, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature and Language. "I admire the assurance, the formal authority of Graves' craft."-Robert Morgan "Here is a welcome new voice offering strengths in craftsmanship and music, but always grounded in a profound sense of place. Read these poems...

The state of Tennessee is widely recognized as a home of great music, and its geographic regions are as distinct as Memphis blues, Nashville country, and Bristol old-time sounds. Tennessee's literary heritage offers equal variety and quality, as home to the Fugitive Agrarian Poets, as well as a signature voice from the Black Arts Movement. Few states present such a multicultural panorama as does the Volunteer State.
The poems in "The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee" engage the storied histories, diverse cultures, and vibrant rural and urban landscapes of the region. Among...

"Basin Ghosts" is a chapbook of original poems by Jesse Graves, author of "Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine." Many poems in "Basin Ghosts" address places and themes that resonated in Graves's first collection, which won both the Weatherford Award and the Appalachian Writers' Association Book of the Year Award in Poetry. The poems in "Basin Ghosts" examine life in the rural South, changes that have occurred over generations in communities there, and the ways in which the past lives on through memory and attachment to the land.
Grace Notes
Leora never walked the quarter-mile of...

Robert Morgan and Kathryn Stripling Byer, Al Maginnes and Cathy Smith Bowers, Thomas Raine Crowe and Michael McFee, as well as many new voices. . . Indeed, the variegation of the Tar Heel State's landscapes, as well as its rich history, is reflected through the myriad voices of its contemporary verse. As with other volumes of "The Southern Poetry Anthology," this book--full of a wide gamut of poetic styles and approaches--will appeal to many readers, prove an excellent teaching resource for North Carolina students of literature, and serve as the definitive poetic document for North Carolina...

The author of nine volumes of poetry and numerous other writings, the editor of several literary journals, the recipient of copious awards, including the James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and a longtime teacher and mentor, East Tennessee native Jeff Daniel Marion has come to be known as one of the most significant and beloved voices in Appalachian literature over the past four decades. The twenty-one pieces in this illuminating collection range from examinations of Marion s poetry to considerations of his teaching career and influence on students, writers, and artists...