Punishment Bag

”…a debut collection so stylistically various, so deviously sequenced, that not once could I guess what species of poem would come next.” – Christopher Spaide * LitHub *
“The Punishment Bag reveals a ‘natural piety’ of rainbows that never bend, an elevation of poetic presence, and a lively game of chance and irony. The expectation of surprises and figurative penalties stay in every scene, in the ooze of bright-blue light, bear prints and fasting, the sexual taste of figs, the vouches of beekeepers, and in ‘a winter so brutal that the wolves / fed on the wind.’ Jake Fournier creates exceptional poignant promises and the curious temptation to reach into the punishment bag of his marvelous poetry.” – Gerald Vizenor, author of Theatre of Chance: Native Celebrities of Nothing in an Existential Colony
With a delicate and complex ear, a sly wit, and acute self-awareness, these poems move like a snake in the grass, muscled and inexplicable. The gift here is in the unsettling, in the eliding slippage and its attendant, alighting mind. We are left a bit dazed and dazzled, lead to and left entranced at the eerie heart where that dearth of understanding flows from and moves us all.” – Cody-Rose Clevidence, author of Aux/Arc Trypt Ich: Poppycock and Assphodel; Winter; A Night of Dark Trees
“Here is a book marvelously held together by the attempt to see what can often only be felt.” – D. A. Powell, author of Low Hanging Fruit

Jake Fournier is a firefighter living and working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He teaches in the graduate program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

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