Spells of My Name

Spells of my Name speaks to the power of naming as an act of reclamation, making peace with the past to find a window to the future. I.S. Jones is in awe of bodies and opening the body into a new language, probing the micro histories of the heart and asking urgent questions, like: ‘Why do any of us return / to that which has promised to slaughter us?’ Navigating sexuality, memory, and identity is a voice torn into multiple selves. This fracturing is full of diversions and sharp bends—a black fawn that the speaker transforms into as she bounds and leaps between poems while being chased by the faceless hunter. Jones searches for home, a place wherever “memory takes mercy on me.” Spells of My Name is unflinching, confessional, timely, and fluid with grace.

Selected for the 2021 Emerging Poets Chapbook Series
Saddle-stitched, risograph cover, 48 pages, 5″ x 7.25″, FSC-certified paper