Out of grief, upheaval, derision, disappointment, and change of all kinds—from the intimate to the mythic—Incantations both admonishes and rails. Darnell Arnoult's evocative collection unleashes frustration and longing in tongues of fire. And while her poems walk heaven’s blues home in a rush of images, real and imagined, they point to an undergirding optimism and path toward healing and hope where joy lies “dazed and waiting.” The spells cast here are beyond magic, beyond human—no less than urgent, no more than what's necessary to begin again.

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In Galaxie Wagon, Darnell Arnoult navigates the territory of middle age to find humor, heartbreak, and wisdom in a phase of life where the body begins to betray itself, yet romance is still possible and childhood dreams are still attainable. Deceptively simple yet carefully crafted, these engaging poems teach us how memory and attention point us toward our future and grapple with the great paradox: the undeniable knowledge of the finite and an indefatigable belief in the infinite.

With a story-teller’s timing and the emotional range of a singer, Darnell Arnoult in her debut collection offers readers a stirring string of poems about the people of Fieldale, Virginia. A planned community founded in the Virginia foothills by Marshall Fields in the early 1900s to support his textile mill, Fieldale was populated by transplanted Appalachian mountain folk. Arnoult herself grew up there, a third-generation resident but among the first generation to leave. She took away with hser the oral history of her home, and in What Travels With Us she captures in poetic form the townspeople’s voices, both remembered and imagined. Personal, poignant, and witty, Arnoult’s poems look back as they move forward, demonstrating how we are always creating ourselves anew from the experiences we carry with us.

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When Gracie Hollaman hears voices urging her to leave home and seek a new life, she begins a journey of transformation and love that will affect many lives in two not so distant Southern towns. Putting her own family—a husband and daughter—and her old identity behind her, she is taken in by an African-American household headed by Mama Toot and Mattie, two strong and accomplished women going through life changes of their own. Gracie begins to paint enormous pictures, first of Jesus and then of angels and fairies on found objects, and both families must adapt to Gracie’s new self and new calling. Through love, faith, humor, and creative expression, together these characters find connections with each other and fresh beginnings in their own lives.

Sufficient Grace brings Southern warmth, wit, and even a touch of down-home cooking to a beautifully paced story filled with pitch-perfect characters and a magical sense of an unforgettable place. This is a book about late-onset schizophrenia, mothering, what it means to be called in all kinds of ways, and how it is we feed ourselves and each other.

BONUS: Read an outtake from Sufficient Grace!
See Ed and Gracie when they first met.

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