Imaginary Logic

A new collection from a Kingsley Tufts Award–winning poet

Imaginary Logic is a brilliantly expansive, deeply meditative, and at times wildly imaginative collection of poems that combines Rodney Jones’s distinctive storytelling ability, sharp social intelligence, and keen powers of observation in a book that is wistful, satiric, audacious, and remorseless. “The Art of Heaven” opens with a parody of Dante and a down-home, twisted humor that Jones’s readers have come to rely on: “In the middle of my life I came to a dark wood, / the smell of barbecue, kids running in the yards. / Not deep depression. This nice hell of suburbs. / Speed bumps. The way things aren’t quite paradise.”

Rodney Jones, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, is one of America’s “best, most generous, and most brilliantly readable poets” (Poetry). Imaginary Logic is the most eloquent expression yet of his rigorous mind, scrupulous eye, and capacious heart.

What happens when a master storyteller turns his keen eye to the absurdities and grace of modern American life?

Storytelling in Verse: Follow a Dante-esque journey through the "nice hell of suburbs," complete with the smell of barbecue and the startling humor of the everyday. Meditative Poetry: Explore profound and personal moments, from scenes of the late sixties to the quiet revelations found in an Alabama town. Satirical Edge: Experience a sharp, satirical wit that takes on everything from ambition and prayer to the very act of writing poetry itself. The American Experience: From a trip to Opelika to a drive through St. Louis, these poems capture the vast, varied, and often contradictory soul of America.