Heaven Bound, The Book

21 paintings by Sandy Roumagoux 21 poems by James Fleming

from the back cover

Heaven Bound, the collaboration of Sandy Roumagoux's paintings and Jim Fleming's poems comes from a bonded pair who knew each other intimately, not in the biblical sense, but with the unison of souls painters and poets have had since before creation. It is clear Roumagoux and Fleming are headed for heaven, not that lofty stuffy place where we won't see our friends, but the heaven of laughter when the candle sputters, that heaven that welcomes everyone and swearing is allowed. With Heaven Bound there is no waiting for reward. We climb on board right now and enjoy the ride all the way home.

Verlena Orr

have a look inside!

Heaven Bound	Heaven Bound Poem	Unknown Saint	Unknown Saint Poem
Ratsniff	Ratsniff Poem	Flyby	Flyby Poem

from the CD

Heaven Bound comes with a CD that includes each poem in the book, delightfully read by the author Jim Fleming.  Here are some examples:

From the Introduction

This book owes as much to chance as it does to good intentions. The paintings were already part of Roumagoux's body of work when Fleming took it upon himself to write a poem about one of them -- "Buck."

With a poet's customary satisfaction with his own efforts, Fleming talked Roumagoux into loaning him more slides of her work from which he proceeded to write more poems.

Roumagoux and Fleming are long-time friends who seldom talk about art or poetry anyway, preferring politics and gossip as a better use of their time.

What collaboration there has been on the book has more to do with the pre-existing friendship than with work on the book itself. The reader will have no trouble in recognizing a common thread of opinionated outlook of the sort that true friendships are built upon.

In the paintings, dogs, Ku Klux Klanners, slaughtered deer, saints, hunters, and mermaids exist side by side, with a leveling of distinction and value that shadows a leveling of the forests and a general ecological degradation.

The poems are eccentric, individual reactions to the paintings. They will be of no help in riddling the "meaning" of a work. It's up to the reader to decide if a poem relates in any way to what the artist may have had in mind.

Finding humor in the prospect of world destruction might strike some as irreverent. We agree. There is a fair amount of irreverence here for which we take full responsibility.

Sandy Roumagoux
Jim Fleming