We hope you can join us at 4:00 PM on Thursday, October 8th for the launch of Everyone Begotten, Everything Holy (April Gloaming Publishing), the latest collection of poems by Dana Malone. Dana will read from her book and we’ll have a musical performance by next-gen outlaw songwriter Jubal Lee Young of the Cashville Trash Pandas.
Everyone Begotten, Everything Holy weaves together themes of music and composition, health impediments like Parkinson’s disease and addiction, a sense of place and lack of belonging, theology and religiosity, and violence and war. The poems offer solos for background singers, choruses for trafficked women, laments for soldiers, a dies irae for developers, and praise hymns for kudzu, bamboo, tornados, disco balls, century eggs, Americana instruments, and cocktail napkin divinations—all leading to a capstone humanist intercessory.
Dana Malone drew upon the experiences of her musical studies and her journalism and speechwriting career to create the poems in Everyone Begotten, Everything Holy. She began performing spoken word in Middle Tennessee, the Eastern US, the UK and Australia in 1994.Two notable recent publications include a poem wrapped on a WeGo bus and a feature in the NPR-supported podcast, Versify. Advanced reviews for Everyone Begotten, Everything Holy are starting to come in for and it is being well-received!
This is wide-canvas national and social literature, pulsing like the chorus of a Bertolt Brecht play adapted to a Creedence Clearwater Revival soundtrack. —Carter Moody, community advocate, writer and former Billboard reporter.
These poems range from experimental free verse and sonnets to tight couplets, to almost stream of consciousness. But you feel Malone’s attentiveness behind every word and move. She approaches her poems with a love and respect for the music of language that is a golden thread throughout the book. The reader knows that she knows that there is no other act more sacred than the act of creation. There are no trumpets from her declaring such. It’s an understood, yet probably the most important, hallowed truth in the book. Malone is in awe of life. She is genuine about it. In turn, the reader cannot help but be in awe of her poems. For those of us who believe music, art, pizza pockets, and life define our religion, and poems are its vessel, Everyone Begotten, Everything Holy is written for us, and anyone else. All they need to do is open these pages. — Chet Weise, writer, musician, and editor at Third Man Books.
We’re excited to host Dana Malone and help her launch her new book. Preorder your copy of Everyone Begotten, Everything Holy on our site here now or grab one when you come out for our event on October 8th.
