CHAINS is a collection of poems and vintage photographs which together unravel the story of violence and its impact through six generations of a family – a fictional representation of actual events and real people – a dark tale of murder, incest, domestic violence, substance abuse, and suicide, always with the possibility of a different choice. CHAINS is a book of poetry, but it captivates an audience beyond the usual poetry lover.

“I read from cover to cover, without stopping . . . I felt as though I was there and witnessing the pathos of the times and the lives.”        
Donna Kassab

The title refers to a chain of events, the chain of family through blood, and the chain reaction between behavior and emotion. The poems offer brief glimpses into the lives of many intriguing characters, whose stories are told through each character’s unique voice, and are united by ties to a central character, Red. These stories of how hearts and worlds are shattered – stories of the will to survive and overcome – begin in 1933, when Red is a boy. We follow him and the people in his life across rural Tennessee into the present day as Red becomes a head of household, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, a guiding spirit, and an inspiration.

“Jones writes of hard love, dark love and love that rains down like a blessing.”
Byron Ballard

CHAINS is about finding the courage to speak out, stand up, live life. It’s about the possibility of miracles – how the choices we make in the twinkle of a moment create our experience and create the world for our children. It’s about family and the dangerous attachments we make in the name of love. It’s about continuing. And it’s about the wastes of human beings.

“You have used poetry well to touch a naked emotional depth that would have been too much for prose. The photos ground the work and make me stay, keep me from skittering from the harshness of these relationships.”        
Peggy Tabor Millin

The photos are genuine, but their use is primarily ambient, to insinuate a sense of movement, and to point out the contrast between the seeming simplicity of these lives and the complex emotional disturbances just under the surface. Since much of the tragedy of CHAINS revolves around the very young, child faces (with their simple joys and secret pain) play a prominent role. The photos also reinforce time, place, the everydayness of life, and provide a breath between poems.  

  “an amazing job with structure and layout . . . Jones stories the family in serious, thought-provoking verse, which depicts emotions, memories, wish-filled hopes, suffering, questions, denial, love, hate, and survival . . . . with shrewd, interesting characters whose lives are pieced together like an old patchwork quilt . . . . Read these poems and perhaps find a familiar story melded into one of the links of CHAINS, and realize that Jones has given us something to think about: We are all the same . . . .”        
MariJo Moore