Books will be available for sale and signi ng following the event. \;
\nThis event will be livestreamed. Watch it her
e &rarr\;
"Plums are not the only fruit that grows in this orchard of deftly crafted and sagely insightful new poems from Arkan sas poet Gerry Sloan. There are also wild grapes\, mulberries\, and waterm elons thumped for ripeness. Like those plums &ldquo\;plucked from the fenc erow / on Decoration Day\,&rdquo\; they all flourish on trees\, bushes\, a nd vines that in the landscape of the poet&rsquo\;s imagination line the b oundary between past and present\, the living and the dead\, innocence and experience\, what we have lost and what we can still become. In \;Cemetery Plums\, \;Sloan proves once again that he is a master a t finding the greatest truths in life&rsquo\;s simplest experiences and at discovering in the natural world the metaphors we live by." &mdash\;Micha el Blanchard\, author\, The Things of This World and editor\, SLA NT
\n"A retired music professor and lifelong poet\, Gerry Sloan inst
inctively grants his poetry perspective and music. Riffing through time an
d experience and emotion\, Sloan examines the lives we lead and breathes m
elody and rhythm into this existence\, while deftly sounding the notes of
integrity\, hope\, and compassion." &mdash\;Phillip Howerton\, author\,
"Gerr y Sloan&rsquo\;s Cemetery Plums awakens us to everything we&rsquo \;re prone to overlook\, whether a spider swinging &ldquo\;on a single spa rkling strand of gossamer&rdquo\; or a dream that would speak to us if we& rsquo\;d only listen &mdash\; and Sloan is always listening\, with all of his senses. I adore his wit\, self-effacing\, dry\, ironic\, and feel his melancholy\, rooted in an acute sense of mortality. You will find\, too\, in these brilliant yet companionable poems\, Sloan&rsquo\;s deep\, vulnera ble love for earth and kin. In &ldquo\;Searching for Muscadines\,&rdquo\; he writes\, &ldquo\;If you should someday find me wandering / distractedly by a rural fencerow\, please / think of this poem and know I haven&rsquo\ ;t / entirely lost my mind\, Dad still out there / somewhere\, guiding me to the ripest ones.&rdquo\; &mdash\;Suzanne Underwood Rhodes\, Arkansas Po et Laureate and author\, The Perfume of Pain
\nGerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayettev
ille\, Arkansas. He has been writing poetry since high school\, where he w
as lucky enough to have John Taylor\, an inspiriting English teacher. An e
ssay won the Preternatural Readers Contest in 1987 from The Missouri R
eview. In 1990\, he received the WORDS Award in Poetry from the Arkan
sas Literary Society in Little Rock. In 2018\, he won First Prize in Poetr
y from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition for "Poem for Palestine." His p
oetry collections are Paper Lanterns (Half Acre Press\, 2011)\, <
em>Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (Rollston Press\, 2017)\, and a selec
tion in the "chapthology" Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Corner
post Press\, 2022). His poems appear in Christian Science Monitor
\, Kansas Quarterly\, The Nebraska Review\, North Da
kota Quarterly\, Midwest Quarterly\, Plains Poetry Journ
al\, and Arkansas Review\, as well as the Anthology of M
agazine Verse &\; Yearbook of American Poetry (1986-88). \;
< em>For disability accommodations\, call 479.856.7250 or email& nbsp\;questions@faylib.org \;2-3 wee kdays before a program. Plan your visit by viewing our building map \;and det ails on accessibility services.
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