Sundown Explains Nothing: New and Selected Poems

In his new and selected, Jim Barnes crafts bliss from the urgent and allusive with an enigmatic voice that is often mysterious.

A CHOCTAW CHIEF HELPS PLAN

A FESTIVAL IN MEMORY OF

PUSHMATAHA’S BIRTHDAY

We know he liked chock beer and watermelon
and raced sleek ponies in the dead of night.
We’ll give him that. We’ll have to open up
the valley to whites and those Chickasaws,
or it’s sure no go. But we’ll keep it pure…

A lot depends on image. Use your masks.
Don’t wear boots. Speak the language if you can…