Poetry

Every Hard Sweetness

In Every Hard Sweetness, Carter-Jones chronicles Civil Rights’ era atrocities through the story of her family’s experience with an all-too-common practice in which Black men were wrongfully incarcerated in institutions for the criminally insane. The result is a stunning work reflecting on race, criminalization, and the devastating consequences of a Black father’s incarceration on his psyche and family, specifically his Black daughter. Told through a mixture of photography, ekphrasis, and erasure, Carter-Jones’ powerful collection creates an extraordinary record of her family’s life at a time of great suffering and upheaval.

Praise for Every Hard Sweetness

“Every time I read this brilliant book some new mastery unfolds. Sheila Carter-Jones is simply a badass poet.” —Terrance Hayes, author of Lighthead

“This book is unforgettable in its bravery, its truth-telling, its tragedy, its strength.” —Jan Beatty, author of The Body Wars

“Every Hard Sweetness is an extraordinary work of history and possibility. Within the brutal conditions of every state-sanctioned terror against her family, the poet makes a brilliant record of a deeply disciplined, steadfast tenderness...” —Aracelis Girmay, author of the black maria

“Carter-Jones powerfully wields various forms, including photographs, to recover the past, resulting in a work that is a moving testament to the 'art of staying alive.'” —Shara McCallum, author of No Ruined Stone

“With the authoritative and unflinching voice of an emotional historian, these poems document and expose the racism and bigotry that still haunt America, through the personal as well as public lens. And yet, for all the hard moments of this story, there is also a kind of sweetness in the way that the poet renders tender family moments, honors victims of injustice, commands herself in the world, rises above it, and holds on to hope.” —Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet

“This extraordinary and important book illustrates the ways in which anti-Black violence can be brutally whitewashed under the guise of institutional and bureaucratic complicity. At the same time, Every Hard Sweetness insists on celebrating Black courage, Black resilience, and Black joy in poems that are riveting, heartbreaking, and gorgeous.” —Lee Ann Roripaugh, author of Tsunami vs. the Fukushima 50

FormatPaperback

Publication DateApril 16, 2004

ISBN9781960145123

$19.00

About the Author

About the Author

Sheila L. Carter-Jones is the author of Three Birds Deep, the winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Book Award, and Every Hard Sweetness (BOA, 2024). She is also the author of the chapbooks Blackberry Cobbler Song and Crooked Star Dream Book. Sheila is a fellow of Cave Canem, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and a Walter Dakin Fellow of the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Her poetry has been published in Crossing Limits, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Pennsylvania Review, Tri-State Anthology, Riverspeak, Flights: The Literary Journal of Sinclair College, Coal: A Poetry Anthology, City Paper, Cave Canem Anthology, Jewish Currents, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Women Speak, Mom Egg Review, Northside Chronicle, Platform Review, South Dakota Review, Shepherd University Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Butler Books: The Boom Project, Low Ghost Press, Labor, Rune Literary Collection and other journals and anthologies. She received her MFA from Carlow University where she facilitates writing workshops for the Madwomen in the Attic Program. Her work also appears in several volumes of Madwomen Anthologies.