Congratulations to John Wall Barger! The Book of Festus has been shortlisted for the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award through the East Coast Literary Awards. 

Festus wakes inside a myth—on a wharf in Halifax, Nova Scotia — and recalls nothing but a bicycle. As he looks for it, he thinks the city’s thoughts. Upon a sidewalk over a buried river, he remembers what the city remembers. He steps past a skateboard park to a Mi’kmaq lagoon. He follows 17th century pioneer cattle to a fast food restaurant. In these poems, every object has a voice; every thing is awake. A girl he once knew steps out of the fragments. Festus is an anagogic man, loser-hero of the first city, Ur, Halifax.

Buy The Book of Festus here!