Everyone Disappears

by W Luther Jett

Overview

In this follow-up to his earlier chapbook, Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father (FLP, 2015), Luther Jett confronts the ephemeral nature of our lives, the process of grief, and the endurance of memory. Jett draws upon recollections of family, as well as historical events and forces to weave a tapestry of image and reflection. Loss "... comes with the ticking of clocks ..." the author reminds us in his title poem, "... and that is why the ocean tastes of tears." Jett writes of ghostly grandfather clocks that walk in the night, of forgotten toys scattered in an unmown lawn, of the importance and the hidden dangers of holding on to memory. "What can I sing to tell your feast?" Jett asks in the poem "Seamus", adding in his later poem, "One by One", "I chant the names of things long after they have gone."

Maryland's Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri says of Jett's work: "[N]ever have the dead been more alive .... Subtle and intelligent stories, realized through the power of Jett's voice, make life appear on every page." In this time of world-wide pandemic and upheaval, "Everyone Disappears" may take on additional resonance as we grope for understanding in the face of tragedy and uncertainty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646623723
Publisher:	Finishing Line Press
Publication date:	11/27/2020
Pages:	44
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.11(d)

About the Author

W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals, such as The GW Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Potomac Review, and Little Patuxent Review as well as several anthologies. His poetry performance piece, Flying to America, debuted at the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival in Washington D.C. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father, [Finishing Line Press, 2015], and Our Situation, [Prolific Press, 2018].

Table of Contents

Nepenthe 1

Why the Ocean Tastes of Tears 2

The Sea House 3

Let The Dead Bury The Dead 4

Holding 5

Red Dirt 6

Monuments 7

Seamus 8

Days like This 9

Dear Sister 10

Nightmares 11

From A High Window 12

Summer Islands 13

Requiem 14

Norway, Summer 2011 15

That Night 16

Ashfall 17

Sanctum 18

Remembrance 19

Afternoon 20

Respite 21

Still 22

Coffin 23

Recollection Waltz 24

One By One 25

Home 26

Looking West 27

The Dreaming House 28

Before the Dawn 29

And The Gate Opens This Way 30

What We Could Not Keep 31

Hold / Let Go 32

Editorial Reviews

Clocks are a constant reminder that time is always disappearing. Jett's collection of poems is a meditation on impermanence. Death is a theme one will slow dance with when reading this book. Jett knows there are days when one's hands are empty, holding not even the warmth of the blues. The people we love have gone ahead. Soon they disappear from our sight. Jett writes so that we might continue to see.

-Ethelbert Miller, Writer and literary activist, Host of "On The Margin" (WPFW 89.3 FM)

In W. Luther Jett's Everyone Disappears never have the dead been more alive. It's his "feel of flowers," wild deer running in green hills, "the sky not a wall but a gate," and more. The theme is loss; yet, the spirited act of writing transforms everything created by nature, even its demise. Poems like these expand the canon; mortality has always been a job for the poet and Jett doesn't turn away, modulating poems with colorful words and powerful insights so the subject-precise in every note-endows pain with beauty. This poetry revolves around family, with feelings tender and vulnerable-allowing more opportunity for music-making. Subtle and intelligent stories, realized through the power of Jett's voice, make life appear on every page.

-Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate

"Everyone goes away. Everyone disappears", Luther Jett declares in these haunting odes to the ending of people and things, vanishing into memory, then out of it. But we, his readers, are here still, treasuring Jett's lyrics, his gentle ironies, and his dark yet charming humor: The grandfather clock that "would move through our rooms when it thought we were all asleep." These poems appear at a time when we we are living (and dying) through a waking nightmare, a pandemic devouring humans, cultures, ways of life. What rough beast is rising out of the ashes? Jett, the bard, the seer, gives us clues to help us reconstruct our lives and the memories of our dead. We will be reciting Luther Jett's poems many years hence, into the uncertain dark.

-Indran Amirthanayagam, author of The Migrant States, editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly

From the Publisher