Since 1980, Jones has received numerous honors, including a National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Jean Stein Award, the Academy of American Poets Lavan Younger Poets Award, Pulitzer finalist status and a Guggenheim Fellowship (“Rodney”).

His most recent poem “Ten Sighs from a Sabbatical,” which was originally published in the magazine Five Points has been chosen for the 2003 edition of The Best American Poetry, the nation’s top poetry annual.

In 1985, Jones joined the faculty of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, after a year as lecturer, as professor of English. He has written many books, including The Story They Told Us of Light, Transparent Gestures, and The Unborn, all of which I will be discussing poems from in this essay.

Most of Jones’ poems do not have a set rhyme scheme or follow what some might say would be a traditional poem form. He uses

“Homebreaking” seems to be about Jones waking up in the morning and seeing his yard covered in dew. He says the trees never stood so slender, the old mailbox was “resilvered.” He picks an apple and he tells us “into my hands and it was the world reduced to pleasure.” Out of his mouth came hollowness, then yellow jackets, then poems.

The first poem I will be discussing is from Jones’ first book, The Story They Told Us of Light. It is called “Homebreaking.” The first thing I noticed when reading this poem was the lack of end stops and lower case letters in the beginning of the lines. I find this interesting, because a lot of poems which I write are similar. This is very close to some of E. E. Cummings’ works, specifically, “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town.” Both poems have few end stops. The whole poem seems to flow together as if it is one long sentence.

After reading many of Jones’ poems, I have decided I like “Serious Partying” the least. This is why I chose to discuss it. While most of Jones’ other poems are full of descriptive imagery and beautiful thoughts, this poem is not as descriptive as many of his other poems. I was left wanting more out of this poem. I was attracted to the poem because of the title but was left wondering where the party was.

I believe the main theme of this poem is Jones saying he and his wife are having troubles in their relationship. I infer this from the final stanza where he says

This poem also contains some communist innuendos. Obviously, there is the mentioning of a commune, but this commune is packed with criminals. I do not know very much about communism, but what I was left asking myself after reading this poem was… why would communists steal diamonds, stereos, etc? I thought the idea of communism was to share the wealth, not steal from vacationers.

Some topics in this essay:
Transparent Gestures, Locke Kierkegaard, Pretty Town”, Rodney Jones’, Gestures Unborn, Rodney Jones, Told Light, Alabama Press, Hartsell Alabama, American Poetry, jones’ poems, rhyme scheme, story told, university alabama, “serious partying”, story told light, transparent gestures, told light, jones rodney, reading poem, rodney jones, theme poem jones, rodney jones’ poems, university alabama press, free verse rhyme,