The story of Kent Soileau, who lives an upside-down life as a professional job-hopper and as an inmate of a nut house. He has assembled an impressive resume of diverse and comical experiences, from being a driver for Mississippi River-boat pilots, to a French Quarter bartender, to a genetics research associate. Kent is a true searcher, whether searching for food, a place to stay, happiness-or the meaning of life.

For Mr. Raindrinker: A Novel of New Orleans

Fontenot, Ken

Literature & Fiction

Alamo Bay Press

"Ken Fontenot is one of the most original, moving poets in the world. I have treasured his work for years-his images startle us awake. His wisdom sears."-Naomi Shihab Nye, a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and author of TRANSFER "In Fontenot's In a Kingdom of Birds, I find exactly the kind of poems for which I am most grateful: poems self-aware enough to recognize that in all things exist both tragedy and light, but poems not so besotted with that conniving paradox to dwell too solemnly on it for too long. There's exquisite craft in knowing how to navigate those skies. And navigate them, he does, a bird himself in this kingdom of birds. For truly, everything does both fly and sing-the great gray owl, the swan of stretched legs, the panting sparrow, the quickening sparrow, the nighthawk, the black-throated grackle, the foraging doves. As well, the gnat that lands inside the poet's ear, the oscillating fan his grandmother keeps running for decades straight, and the loose, elusive presence of the ghosts of both the living and the dead: the strangely solid phantom forms of friends, relations, lovers, and authors that haunt the walls of this poetic house (to be sure, it is a just, benevolent, knowledge-weary haunting of which I speak). And too: the ghosts of those ghosts. 'Light has everything to do with pain, / and darkness has everything to do / with love,' Fontenot writes. And later, 'the world is bleak, the world is glorious ... You go on filling your jar of hope with yet more hope.' These poems convince me that night is solely purposed for better viewing of the stars, and the stars' own shimmering brightness exists to remind us that an outer darkness sorely looms."-Jill Alexander Essbaum, Winner of the Katharine Bakeless Nason Poetry Prize

In a Kingdom of Birds

Poetry

Pinyon Publishing

Ken Fontenot's fourth book of poems continues the fine balance of "things both practical and sublime" that he developed with subtlety and flare in his previous book, In a Kingdom of Birds-poems that explore the personal as well as the grander themes of life, with music presiding. "The songs of my time insist we listen attentively. / Take Fleetwood Mac. They incite, almost all melody, / which is the pie's filling, the alcohol in a mixed / drink." Images of childhood (gathering eggs, his grandfather's tractor, butchering a hog) and wildlife (hummingbirds, hyenas, lions, snakes) share meditations with figures encountered during a learned life-Beethoven, Goethe, Shakespeare, Mahler, Brahms, Bruckner, Buddha, Whitman, Melville, Aristotle. "Mostly, / though, I would have wanted Boccherini's dates: / 1743-1805. Was it a great time to be alive? / Of course, the music itself seems to say so." And throughout-he weighs and balances a lifetime of choices. "I wanted to have a distinct plan, yet it changed / as I changed. Even the pines were insightful. / And the cows returned to the barn in their slow way." Poets on Ken Fontenot's In a Kingdom of Birds "Fontenot's keen observation and original intelligence make his poetry well worth reading and a joy to examine ... southern regionalism combines with cosmopolitan sensitivity."-Harry de la Houssaye, Xavier Review "For Fontenot, the act of reading is one such expression of that desire: 'Readers, after all, view the world most passionately- / as if their own lives were at stake.' And this stellar collection of Fontenot's mature years fully persuades, by its metaphorical and imagistic thinking, that our own lives are truly at stake."-Kurt Heinzelman, Borderlands "Any reader's way of looking at and comprehending the world will be vastly expanded and improved by Fontenot's fresh and thought-provoking poems."-Dave Oliphant, Southwestern American Literature

Just a Trace of Moon

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fontenot, Ken. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fontenot, Ken

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fontenot, Ken. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

For Mr. Raindrinker: A Novel of New Orleans

In a Kingdom of Birds

Just a Trace of Moon