Jesus in the Ghost Room

Rusty Barnes is a rugged and honest poet. He is a student of Frank Stanford and Larry Brown. His language is pure Americana deeply entrenched in the everyday in family and in place. The poems in Jesus in the Ghost Room pay homage to memory and are an ode to his late father but with lines such as Oh Father / I wish I could invoke your smell / the way your cigarette ashed onto / the sick-filled carpet on the edge / of what we could readily say it is clear that this collection is about salvation an epic prayer for the human spirit and for an increasingly tumultuous world. Even when the poem is about pissing out a fire Barnes raises his voice to what could only be a Higher Power: Long live the resin- / filled pine and the twigs I used for tinder. Rustys poems are like the man himself large and gentle. Hes a man who loves his family especially his wife and four children. Hes the type of man who within his own quietness shakes his head and wonders how he ever became so lucky and a man who doesnt take his luck for granted but within poems gives thanks and praise. Joshua Michael Stewart author of Break Every String