Felon: Poems

A searing volume by a poet whose work conveys “the visceral effect that prison has on identity” (New York Times).

Felon tells the story of one man in fierce, dazzling poems- canvassing his wide range of emotions and experiences through homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and grace- and, in doing so, creates a travelogue for an imagined life. Reginald Dwayne Betts confronts the funk of post-incarceration existence and examines prison not as a static...