Sober Ghost

In Sober Ghost Jeffrey Skinner writes with a lyric brutality that stuns. This is a collection of poems that vary widely and wonderfully in form and timbre, and end up aptly defining our own dichotomies.  The raw finesse of many of Skinner’s lines inspired a shiver down my spine.  But he himself is unafraid.  While embracing rage and faith at once, Skinner has left behind the life imagined, and arrived at life as it is.  As a result, something miraculous takes place: despite life’s struggles, this Sober Ghost (a title that to me says everything) rises.  And what we see clearly, through that spirit, is Skinner’s prevailing gratitude for life itself.

—Alice Sebold