On the publication of her chapbook, Blinded Birds
“Blinded Birds” traces the descent of three generations of women into the anguished worlds of depression, alcoholism, and addiction—genetic predispositions that “tumble down generations / like a Slinky toy on the stairs.” The book’s title alludes to a Flemish sport in which finches were blinded with hot needles to block out the distractions of the real world, compelling them to repeat their song more compulsively and thus win in competition. This, the collection’s title poem asserts, is not unlike the genetic anomalies increasingly linked to clinical depression and all kinds of addictive and atypical behavior—mutations imposed by a tyrannical god’s whims. But as Blinded Birds makes clear, there is the hope of joy and recovery, despite genetic propensity. Healing can be manifested through courage, determination, and the loving support of family. The author has pledged to donate 15% of proceeds to the organization To Write Love on Her Arms, a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide.
For those of us who lost our light early, for whom a ferocious hunger took the place of a good thing we could count on, who spent years in the dark searching for a fix of light, and who eventually found that it was softly knocking from within us all these years, B. Fulton Jennes‘ Blinded Birds is the book that knows just where you’ve been. This is a book of immense courage, of pain, of remembrance, but more than anything, it is a poetic compass for those who might never have had one to guide them through, a reminder that healing comes to us all in time. What a soul-weave of a book.
–James Diaz, author of This Someone I Call Stranger and All Things Beautiful Are Bent; poetry editor at Anti-Heroin Chic
About the Author
B. Fulton Jennes is Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, CT, where she serves as poet-in-residence at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her poems have appeared in Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Night Heron Barks, Limp Wrist, Anti-Heroin Chic, SWIMM, Pareidolia Literary, Extreme Sonnets II, and many other journals and anthologies. Her still-in-development collection Mammoth Spring was a finalist for the 2021 Two Sylvias Wilder Prize and the Small Harbor Press Laureate Prize. Her chapbook Blinded Birds (Finishing Line Press) was released in April of 2022.
To Purchase
Finishing Line Press
Blinded Birds
Paper, $14.99
Published: April 2022