Order your 1st edition, signed copy today for $12.95 with free shipping!

or send check or money order for $12.95, payable to
Light of New Orleans
828 Royal Street #307
New Orleans, LA 70116

new from Light of New Orleans Publishing...

back in america
by Barry Gifford

“Barry Gifford’s pure lyrical self shines in these poems.
The flickering lights visible in the swirling noir of his
fiction are in the foreground here.”
—ANDREI CODRESCU

Barry Gifford, the author of Wild at Heart, Night People and the screenplay for David Lynch’s Lost Highway, offers his strongest, most mature collection of poems to date. With spare eloquence he considers such diverse subjects as the light in Vermeer’s masterpieces, an elegy for his friend Allen Ginsberg, a cowboy wino worthy of Homer’s Iliad, and a hauntingly short poem about September 11 that says it all. Gifford’s reflections—romantic and tender but never sentimental—wander from Canada to Mexico, from Cuba to France, from life to death, lust to love. Words such as “You sleep with my soul in your mouth/ When we kiss I can taste it” and “if you can choose, it’s not love” build these pieces to newfound revelations that leave only a yearning for the light that begins with the next page.

“Barry Gifford’s consummate skills give us reflecting images and themes in quick, bright strokes that linger on the retina.”—THE WASHINGTON POST

“Barry Gifford is back in America, and he is just in time. His poems about Americans, their dreams, their talents, and their flaws, reveal Gifford's deep understanding of the American character... His unflinching look at the present world illuminates the darkness in people's hearts... The imagery is forceful and vivid, and a sense of despair haunts the edges of the frame...Striking in their simplicity and in their revelatory moments.”—THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

“Turning the last page of Back in America is one of the book's few disappointments.
The simplicity of Gifford's lines belies the powerful emotion of his confession. In 'September 11, 2001,' he takes only 25 words to put the events of that date in a new, chilling perspective.”—PLANET WEEKLY

“The poems range between elegiac and romantic and seem to almost distill the carnivalesque sensory whirlwind of his novels into tiny and perfect gems.
Gifford's take on 9/11 is one of the collection's most powerful pieces, packing a sneaky wallop.”—GAMBIT WEEKLY

“Gifford is to America what Marquez was to Colombia: a national magical realist.”—THE TIMES

“Barry Gifford continues to be one of America’s most original writers.” —PLAYBOY

“Some things in life are beyond analysis, and Barry Gifford is one of them.”—BOOKLIST

Back in America, Barry Gifford, original edition. Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5”, 100 pages, ISBN 0-9714076-4-9, LCCN 2004006933, $12.95. Publication date: November 2004. North American distribution by Independent Publishers Group

Light of New Orleans Publishing, LLC

828 Royal St. #307, New Orleans, LA 70116 USA.

Tel.504.523.4322, fax.504.522.0688