This is Not a Death Sentence

Explore the depths of This is Not A Death Sentence: A Memoir in Verse by Anton Jones, where poetry meets the raw truths of living on the schizophrenic spectrum.

Jones crafts a poignant narrative that weaves together the threads of depression, mania, boxing, door-to-door sales, delusional crushes, poverty, haunted houses, suicide, healthcare challenges, homelessness, fatherhood, and the backdrop of the Pacific Northwest. Each poem serves as a fragment of Jones's fractured reality, reflecting the relentless struggle to conceal stigmatized symptoms only to confront them head-on.

His poetry captures the essence of this lived experience, depicting the suffocation of coherent thought through a cascade of movements, associations, and vivid hallucinogenic imagery. Despite years of decline and what seems like an endless fight, Jones finds the strength to confront his illness, refusing to surrender to despair.

Anton Jones is a tenure-track professor and program lead of the English department at Concordia University Chicago. He teaches English and Creative Writing while assisting with the publication of the university's two literary magazines: Motif and Caesura. He attributes his love for writing to a decade spent composing silly poetry around a campfire with his best friends.