Jesse Graves was born and raised in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, where his ancestors settled in the 1780s. His poems and essays have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Southern Quarterly, Connecticut Review, and other journals, anthologies, and collections. He teaches at East Tennessee State University, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature and Language. "I admire the assurance, the formal authority of Graves' craft." --Robert Morgan "Here is a welcome new voice offering strengths in craftsmanship and music, but always grounded in a profound sense of place. Read these poems for their wisdom, listen closely to their cadence, let them take you where they will." --­­­Jeff Daniel Marion "Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine is more than an extraordinary first book. These poems have the music, wisdom, and singular voice of a talent fully realized, and make abundantly clear that Jesse Graves is one of America's finest young poets." --Ron Rash