6 Books Published by CavanKerry Press on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Rewilding, a relatively new ecological term, means to return an area of land to its original state. Reveling in letting go of the damaged and broken parts of ourselves while celebrating renewal and new beginnings, O’Neil’s poetry examines the external worlds of race and culture and the internal, personal worlds of family and desire. Ultimately, these poems tap into what is wild and good in all of us.

At the center of her second book are two islands off the coast of Salem, Massachusetts, through which O’Neil finds the rough terrain of marriage and what it means to love in the face of adversity. She navigates the waters of transition with exuberance and reflection, and discovers new ways to make the ordinary extraordinary.

"A poet whose voice and message we trust…a singular and significant voice. You will not forget this neighborhood, or this poet." from the foreword by Toi Derricotte

From the twilight towns of the Rust Belt to the vivid inlets of New York City, Neighborhood Register is a ledger of the people, scenes, and sectors from which hidden music and meaning unearth. The collection evokes the beauties and difficulties within multi-racial families, the value of vernacular, and the unexpected resonances of common objects.

"In his fine first collection, Jackson lyrically knits together time, memory, human desires and obligations and invites the kind reader to dance along to his bright measures, which sometimes resemble the life of a young poet, deeply enmeshed in the world, and sometimes reflect like a mirror." - Cornelius Eady

The dynamics of race, family, motherhood, career, sex and ultimately, transformation are explored in this debut collection. Underlife represents the wilderness of thought and emotion hidden away from the external world. Through O’Neil’s narratives we see our lives as if for the first time.

Sam Cornish’s new and selected poems, in the voices and with the lyrics of the blues, grow out of the historical and personal reminiscences and traditions of artists like Langston Hughes and Margaret Walker. The poems are autobiographical and biographical, expressed through such art forms as film noir, science fiction, blues, jazz and other aspects of American popular culture.

An exploration of the various ways language can help us transcend both the banal and unusual cruelties which are inevitably delivered to us, and which we equally deliver unto others. These poems comb through violence and love, fear and loss, exploring the common denominators in each. Against Which seeks the ways human beings might transform themselves from participants in a thoughtless and brutal world to laborers in a loving one.