Inspired by the culture, music, history and mythology of the Blues, 
The Red Light Was My Mind captures the tone, rhythms, sounds, 
images, and myths of the Mississippi Blues. Son House, Charlie 
Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Peetie Wheatstraw, 
Billie Holiday, Jack Johnson, and a cast of entirely fictitious and 
mythical figures embody the region's legendary past and its often 
harsh present. These stories wind through a number of related 
narrative threads, interlaced with poems reflecting a myriad of Blues 
forms: songs, hollers, monologues, folktales, chants, spells, and 
sermons. Love, death, evil, sorrow, violence, and dancing fill the 
Blues and inhabit these poems.

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GARY CHARLES WILKENS, born in South Carolina and raised in 
North Carolina and Arkansas, recently graduated with a master's 
degree from Sam Houston State University, where he now teaches 
as a member of the adjunct faculty. He has attended a number of 
conferences, where he presented his poetry, and his poems have 
appeared widely in such journals as Oklahoma Review, Poetry 
Southeast, and The Texas Review.


What people are saying about this book

"Red dust, love and whiskey blues: this is poetry of strength and 
ferocity. Read it and marvel. Gary C. Wilkens is the best poet of 
his generation, and as good as any who came before him."—Mary 
Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow