Fearless Now & Nameless

Overview

The poems in Jon Davis’s latest collection, Fearless Now & Nameless, direct his keen eye toward the ironies on which this life so often depends—the failures of language, the violence of nature, the indifference of death. “Is that what spirit is?” the poet wonders, considering the nature of birds, the thrasher, the finch “humping in the eaves. Gathering straw and string. / Laying the griefstuck delicate eggs.” As we read, we find our own eyes grow sharper, better able to take it all in. 

Author Biography

Jon Davis is the author of seven previous full-length poetry collections, including, most recently, Above the Bejeweled City and Choose Your Own America. Davis also co-translated Iraqi poet Naseer Hassan’s Dayplaces. He has received a Lannan Literary Award, the Lavan Prize from the Academy of American Poets, a Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. He performs in the poetry + rock band Clap the Houses Dark. In 2013, he founded the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing at IAIA, which he directed until his retirement in 2018.