Exodus of Sparks

Allisa Cherry’s poetry has appeared in over forty journals including TriQuarterly, The Penn Review, The Journal, the Baltimore Review, High Desert Journal, EcoTheo, and Rust + Moth. She has received several Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations and was a finalist for both Sewanee Review’s annual poetry contest and Persea Books’ Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry.

“Cherry’s riveting poems are lifted by stunning paradoxes and striking juxtapositions: the biblical and the contemporary, the textual and the lived moment, the mystery of the body’s desires and Sunday school lectures on chastity. So too, remarkably, An Exodus of Sparks balances lyrical grace and gritty realism, heartbreaking tenderness, and shocking familial violence. Cherry chronicles the disorienting aftermath that follows the loss of a father, a brother, and a stranger struck by an SUV. Along the way, this perceptive poet peels back the surface to reveal the buzzing strangeness beneath each quotidian encounter. In one elegantly crafted poem after another, this wonderful book awakens us from our habituation.” —Yehoshua November, author of The Concealment of Endless Light

• Contents Salt River I. Unreadable Without Any Warning Revelations Still, Small Voice The 13th Article of Faith Family Violence in Five Acts Redemption Is Too Quiet Rolling over Fitfully Here I Take Slip Madonna of the Trail Mogollon Rim The Cold That Settles Lifts Bleached to Brightness Southeast of the Nevada Proving Ground Valley of Dry Bones Daughter of Downwinders Fatherland Sage: A Note to Self II. The Assumption of the Body of Moses The Mortification of the Body of Moses The Corruption of the Body of Moses The Radiance of the Body of Moses The Appropriation of the Body of Moses The Interment of the Body of Moses III. Depth of Field Moses, When Sleep Descends Bless the Damage Cuckoldry To God, the Guidance Hospitality Miriam Alone Is Punished The Vessel and the Emanation Entropy Grips the Garden Stigmata The Original Hyperlink Was the Word Forensic Ornithology Ghost Ship on the Desert Floor Exegesis Let a Double Portion of Your Spirit Be Upon Me A Life / Mislaid The Eros of Small Details Unsighted Your Spirit Might Rise Up and Go Before You An Exodus of Sparks Notes Acknowledgments Series Acknowledgments