Adam Vines – författare

Grounded in technical mastery, the poems in Out of Speech address issues both universal and timely. In this series of ekphrastic works, Adam Vines explores themes as varied as exile, family, disease, desire, and isolation through an array of twentieth- and twenty-first century painters, including Picasso, Hopper, Rothko, de Kooning, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Artschwager. He also goes within and beyond these works of art to explore characters set in the present-day museums, from a bored docent to a misinformed ""explainer"" of an artwork's meaning. Combining these two views- one that looks at the painting and another that looks around it- his poems affirm the artist's insights into the complexity of being human.

Written almost exclusively in traditional, modified, and nonce forms, the poems in Lures renegotiate grief, trauma, southern masculinities, and fatherhood with unflinching resolve. This new collection by Adam Vines draws much of its subject matter and imagery from fishing, revealing how close observations of species, spawning cycles, predation and feeding patterns, underwater topographies, water clarity, and lure choice reflect larger themes of what it means to be lured through memories of those who have passed and those who remain present. With Lures, Vines proposes that by reconstructing the stories from our past, we gain a greater understanding of our cultural identities and inheritances from those who made an impact on our lives.

Alabama has a storied history: Fewer than ten generations ago, Alabama was owned by the Spanish (who claimed Mobile until 1813), then the British, and then the United States, after failing to secede into a Confederacy. Following the Civil War, Alabama suffered economic collapse and depended on the few crops it could sell or export to exist as a unified state. Today, the state thrives, but its troubled history has left a mark that, with hope, fades with time, compassion, and understanding.Alabama is among the most naturally dynamic states in the nation, its ecosystems ranging from Appalachian mountains, through rolling Piedmont, to the vast Gulf Shore.In this tenth volume of The Southern Poetry Anthology, the editors have achieved a remarkable task; they have revealed another wide variegation that makes Alabama so dynamic: poets in the Yellowhammer State with both established and new voices. They have elucidated the impressive and exciting diversity of poets who consider or have considered Alabama home.