Acclaimed author and music critic Sean Murphy's new poetry collection is a searing and timely take on American culture that finds perspective on the present by interrogating our past. The Blackened Blues offers a powerful glimpse into the human psyche, exploring the minds of artists and visionaries, addicts and trauma survivors, searching (as we all are) for "some way to live." We leave this book with a heavy dose of truth, but also of the kind of beauty that makes such truth bearable.