Jump the Gun

jump the gun digs deep into the dark undercurrents of grief and gun violence that shadow our daily lives in America. These poems uproot the hidden

recesses of life, the stages and struggles of womanhood, and our continual fight against violence, both internal and external, in the U.S. today.

The speaker in these

poems wrestles with the everyday fears and realities we often try to ignore:

the complex expectations

placed on young girls and mothers alike, the illusion of childhood innocence,

and the very real

consequences of our environmental destruction.

Split into two

sections--with poems that layer blood-soaked images between close-ups of the

body and domestic life--this collection deftly illustrates the beauty that can be

found in tragedy, the

fragility of the natural world, and the resilience of the human relationships

that fill it.

To read jump the gun

is to witness yourself through the crosshairs. In Malboeuf's words, "What hit you has become you. /

Pieces of the bullet embedded / in your skin. Even / that which you come from / will never be the

same. / But from violence comes / the tides, the seasons."