In the Time of Sonic Booms

Five years in the writing, In the Time of Sonic Booms from Ridgefield Poet Laureate Emerita Barb Fulton Jennes is a collection of poems evoking an upbringing in “a podunk town east of Albany” in the Fifties and Sixties.

But as poet Sean Thomas Doughtery notes in his blurb, “Don’t be fooled. There is no nostalgia here. These are brutal narratives. A boy who shot his brother. A father who ‘thought of guns and knives as children’s gifts.’ A violence so common it is almost matter of fact. This is a landscape of work and getting by.” Poet Charles Raffterty adds, “Every house we encounter is hiding something both dark and commonplace.”

Still, there is goodness and love. Patrick Donnelly, another award-winning poet, writes, “Most thrilling in these poems are the stories in which these folks, harried by life and bad luck, carve out small moments of hand-me-down, unkempt tenderness. I come away from this book loving these insufferable people, doing for one another the best they could, though it was far from enough.”

The poems of Barb Fulton Jennes appear widely in literary journals and anthologies. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Blinded Birds, which received the 2022 International Book Award; FLOWN, an elegy-in-verse to her late sister; and Dirty Bird & Myrt, just released by dancing girl press. Her debut full-length collection In the Time of Sonic Booms was praised by poet Patrick Donnelly as “…a passionate evocation of a small-town, mid-century American childhood made dangerous by hapless parents, ignorant neighbors, cruel children, canting churches, and the occasional escaped criminal.” The poet laureate emerita of Ridgefield, Jernnes directs the Poetry in the Garden festival each summer and hosts “Poems from Connecticut’s Four Corners,” a monthly online reading series hosted by Ridgefield Library.

Join Barb as Ridgefield Library plays host to the launch of this startling new collection.

Register for this event here on the Ridgefield Library website.