Back of Mount Peace

Overview

Characterized by a beautifully realized reciprocity between outer landscape and the characters’ inner worlds, this remarkable sequence of lyric poetry explores the blossoming of an innately complicated relationship between a retired fisherman named Monty Cupidon and a naked, bloodied, and traumatized woman he encounters standing at a crossroad who cannot remember who she is or where she came from. The only clues to her former identity are the signs that she once wore a wedding ring, has a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, and wears red nail polish on her toes. Woven with the narrative elements of mystery and suspense, the poems examine the relationship—from its innocent beginning through the decay of time and into the eventual corruptions of knowledge. Showing an exceptional delicacy of formal control that constantly reinforces the poem’s insights and moving conclusions, the space between reflection and story, body and mind, and land and sea is examined as the couple begins to realize that in the very process of piecing their lives back together lies their relationship’s probable end.

Author Biography

Kwame Dawes is an award-winning poet and author who has received the Forward Poetry Prize, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, and the Pushcart prize for poetry, among others. He is the author of 12 poetry collections, a short story collection, a play, three critical works, and the novel She’s Gone. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina.