And All the Layered Light : Last Poems

Using the settings and imagery of his native rural Kentucky, Charles Semones creates in this new collection of his poems a world of longing and desire, of passion and pursuit, of rapture and depression. In his reclusive, gospel-drenched, haunted world of draped mirrors and desperate dog days of summer, the poetlover moves along his lonely route seeking and hoping for at least a brief respite from the Gothic horrors, internal and external, that curse his journey. Semones's own autobiographical travels and travails, which he has translated into a universal poetry of the soul, will resonate deeply with anyone who thinks deeply about the human condition. You may identify his condition with your own dark night of the soul, praying, like him, for light and bliss at the end of the way. Reactions to the poetry in this new collection will be extreme. Regardless of what you may think about Semones's world and his experiences in it, I am certain that you will be affected by his inspired and expertly crafted poetry. This is Southern Gothic writing at its finest. It is good poetry that transcends time and place.

CHARLES SEMONES was born at Deep Creek in rural Mercer County, Kentucky, in 1937. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, general magazines and religious publications. In 2003, he was given the inaugural Kentucky Literary Award for Excellence in Poetry. He lives in historic Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

WADE HALL (1934-2015) taught at colleges and universities in Florida and Kentucky, and was the author of many books, monographs, poems, and plays about the South and its people. He held degrees from Troy State University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Illinois. A native of rural Alabama, he lived and worked in Louisville, Kentucky, from 1962 to 2006, when he moved back to his family homeplace at Hall's Crossroads in Bullock County, Alabama, south of Union Springs, Alabama.