Photographing Eden

by Jason Gray

Photographing Eden presents the first full-length collection of poems by a major new talent. The work meditates on several ideas, the crux of which is Eden: spirituality, environmentalism, and the relationships between men and women. Observing, often through the lens of a camera, our state in the world, the poems try to focus sharply on what often seems a blur. The poems are always attentive to artistic mediums and the craft behind them because our struggle is to make something perfect in the imperfect world in which we live, while acknowledging the impossibility of that quest. Gray’s poems range all over, from adventures in Egyptian ruins with machine-gun-toting tourist police to the western edge of the foggy Irish coastline, and to the mythic past, where Adam and Eve visit a zoo and Eden has become a nature preserve.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2008

About the author

Jason Gray is the author of Radiation King, winner of the Idaho Prize for Poetry (Lost Horse, 2019), Photographing Eden (Ohio UP, 2008), winner of the Hollis Summers Prize, and two chapbooks of poetry, How to Paint the Savior Dead (Kent State UP, 2007), winner of the Wick Chapbook Award, and Adam & Eve Go the the Zoo (Dream Horse, 2003). His poems have appeared in Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Prague Revue, The Kenyon Review, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He has reviewed poetry, nonfiction, and fiction for The Southern Review, Shenandoah, The Missouri Review, and The Journal, among others. His poetry has been awarded a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference. He co-edits the online poetry journal, Unsplendid .