Hillbilly Drug Baby: The Poems

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"When they went to my father to see if he wanted to raise his twelve-year-old son he couldn't pass the simple test of not having needles strewn all over the floor.

The words are sometimes harsh and the visualizations raw, but so is reality for Jesse-Ray Lewis. He grew up in Appalachia surrounded by violence, drug dealing, and addiction.

I held her for hours.
There was foam at her mouth
and blood as I cradled her.

I am the one who closed her eyes.

He entered foster care at age 12 and aged out of the system in 2016 at age 18.

I thought, I want that.
I want to live without walking
from nowhere to nowhere.

His poems rise up out of that shattered childhood as a quest for answers and a search for a new beginning.

Hillbilly drug baby Maybe that's who I came out as.
But it's not who I want to be.

In these poems, you see a young man on a precipice, wooed by drugs and forgetfulness, but longing for something bigger and better.

I find a single droplet of hope
and choke on it.

Reviews

"Raw and righteous, with indignant courage and an original voice. Jesse-Ray Lewis somehow poeticizes the brutal, all-too relevant struggle of a prodigal son in Appalachia. His work is uniquely framed by the horrifying, inspiring biography of a nobody with plenty to say. Hillbilly Drug Baby: The Poems is a dispatch from darkest American you won't soon forget." Ran Henry, author, the definitive biography Spurrier: How the Ball Coach Taught the South to Play Football
"I come from a cave of broken hearts" is only one line from Hillbilly Drug Baby: The Poems , but it reveals much of what is to be found in this book of poetry. From raw pain to poignant reflection, poet Jesse-Ray Lewis plumbs the depths of despair with his words. Drawing them with a pen dipped in his own life's blood, he reveals glimmers of light and hope in the darkest of places. Lewis's journey from drug baby to user, to becoming a dealer, and finally, a seeker, is cast without apology in strong language. Some will find it difficult to read; it is from life. Unafraid, he probes our deepest fears---what would it be like to live that life To plumb the depths of hell To find an earthly savior loving yet stern and one who probes the crusty exterior, digging deep to find the gentle heart which lies beneath." --Saundra Kelley, author, Southern Appalachian Storytellers: Interviews with Sixteen Keepers of the Oral Tradition and The Day the Mirror Cried , a prizewinning collection of stories and poems.
"Unafraid, he probes our deepest fearswhat would it be like to live that life To plumb the depths of hell" Saundra Kelley, author of Southern Appalachian Storytellers
"These poems wrench open the door to a world of suffering, loss, and hope. Written as Jesse-Ray struggled to find his place in the world after aging-out of the system, his poetry grapples with hard-won truths and the kindness of strangers." Sabrina Carnesi, Committee Chair at In The Margins Book Awards

Author Bio

Jesse-Ray Lewis is the product of a drug-filled childhood, an absent mother, a father who was indifferent at best, and a school system that failed to properly educate him. To maintain his sanity while trying to establish stable footing as an adult, he began writing his experience of his life in poetry. .