Early Fires
RB Morris
Poems

ISBN: 978-0-916078-92-8 Hardcover $26.00

ISBN: 978-0-916078-93-5 Paperback $16.00

The poems in this volume come from an earlier period in Knoxville. Most of them were written then, and the few that were written later were naturally a part of this group. The three books were originally published separately by Rich Mountain Bound, but I always viewed them as a trilogy connected in time and setting and theme. Iris Press publishes them here for the first time together and under this title.

—RB Morris,
from the Author’s Note

PRAISE FOR EARLY FIRES

Early Fires by RB Morris is a stunning revelation, a blazing example of what the sculptor Auguste Rodin meant when he said that an artist’s task is to create a spark if he wants to make a fire. In these poems, prose poems, journal entries, we see the growth of early seeds and the light of inspiration that’s resulted in Morris adding his fire to the fires of Knoxville’s wild geniuses, James Agee, Cormac McCarthy, and Nikki Giovanni. This book is necessary reading for those who want to understand the forces at play in the wild revival of Knoxville’s very soul.

—Phil Cousineau
Deadlines: A Rhapsody on a Theme of Famous Last Words and
The Book of Roads:Travel Stories from Michigan to Marrakesh

RB Morris is the honest eye and honest voice of America. Nothing gets past him—no hype can fool him. His judgment would be terrible, if it were not so completely infused with kindness. His voice has the authentic ring of backwoods America—America before the corruption of money and power, the America that originally meant hope to the world—as much so as those of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and the other tale-telling Southern pioneer heroes that he both emulates and carries on.

—Gerald Nicosia
Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac

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