At the intersection of alcoholism and recovery, Kingfisher Blues brings an unflinching eye and raw wit to one man's battle with addiction. Alternating between meditations on the natural world and gritty snapshots of the county jail, rehab center, and people who occupy these spaces with him-from strippers to soldiers-Reece ruminates on the thin line between life and death. Evocative and unfiltered, Kingfisher Blues weaves his experiences of Montana prairies, Kentucky woods, and Cumberland creeks into stories shared with neighbors, ancestors, former friends, and enduring partners. These intensely personal yet universal poems boldly confront demons and deities while remaining skeptical about either's existence. By conveying the despair-and serenity-found in the loneliness of the woods and seeking self-acceptance in the face of ugly truths, this collection offers a visceral encounter with the intertwined forces of nature, human struggle, and redemption.
"Like everything Erik Reece writes, Kingfisher Blues is both beautiful and important. Honest and precise, often harrowing and always revelatory, these poems showcase a writer at the top of his form."
Silas House, author of Southernmost
"Kingfisher Blues is a searingly honest and stark account of life as an addict, with all the damage that life causes. This book, however, is not uniformly dark. Amid the brute and terrifying glimpses of Reece's own degraded façade, and the great cost of its maintenance, there is kindness, grace, and even humor. Kingfisher Blues is important, both because of its accomplishments as poetry, and becau
Jeffrey Skinner, author of Sober Ghost
"Myth is the bedfellow of truth, and Erik Reece draws from Greek lore, jazz, Chinese poets, and his American walking companion Henry David Thoreau. But it's the poet's own desperate story about addiction's destruction of life that rewrites the worlds of gods and humans. At times brilliantly surreal and at other times stripped so bare we can see the skeleton of the man writing, Reece sings a blues
Todd Davis, author of Ditch Memory: New and Selected Poems
