Spirit in the Dark by Gary Copeland Lilley

$17.99

Paper

979-8-89990-712-8

2026

Spirit in the Dark by Gary Copeland Lilley is a set of poems born in the blues of North Carolina and cultivated by the poet’s subsequent migrations, living in New York; South Carolina; Washington, DC; Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest. He is also a veteran of the US Navy Submarine Force. The collection somehow touches all of those places within its dynamic narrative: this is a storytelling from a kitchen table, a front porch, or riding in an automobile. The character-speak is the soundtrack the poet brings forward, the musicality is the language of these poems. That is a primary thematic element supporting each of these poems, and therefore the entire collection. Lilley makes an effective, powerful use of objective correlatives in his work. His chosen images, sets of objects, situations, symbols are utilized to create mood in his poems, to evoke/provoke specific emotional responses in the reader without the poet saying so directly; to turn ordinary moments into emotional experiences. Gary Copeland Lilley’s intent is for his readers to not be just hearing these stories, but to be feeling them.

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Gary Copeland Lilley is the author of nine books of poetry, the most recent being Raven on the Moaners’ Bench, Four Way Books (2025), and The Hog Killing, Blue Horse Press (2018), and The Bushman’s Medicine Show, Lost Horse Press (2017). Originally from North Carolina he lives now in the Pacific Northwest. He has received the DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry, the Warren Wilson College Joan Beebe Fellowship, and he is a Cave Canem Fellow. He is the Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference.

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PRAISE:

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Gospel, jazz, hoodoo, tin roof clamor, cat-paw echoes, “Mister Midnight dancing in the used car lot”—Gary Copeland Lilley’s Spirit in the Dark is old-soul reaching back into its younger formative self to re-embody both ends of the spectrum with fresh buoyancy and a deeply carried gravitas. High Point, North Carolina, a major place in Lilley’s ongoing life, is where John Coltrane was raised. Lilley is Coltrane seasoned now with Miles Davis: “the all-black creating an all-blue stillness.” The rhythm and meaning of these poems emotionally knock you out, especially at their endings, and leave one in a special wizardry of openness. These poems let you feel the light inside the blues, how it lifts us and carries us when we have no idea where we’re going.

–Tess Gallagher

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