One Man's Dark

Synopsis

Maurice Manning Displays Not Just Terrific Cunning But Terrific Aim.--new York Times Book Review Manning's Genius-his Truly Staggering Genius-is In His Ability To Put This Ancient Question Into A True American Idiom, To Make This Fundamental Human Inquiry Both Vividly, Heartbreakingly Poignant And Madly, Idiosyncratically His Own. -smartish Pace He's Saved Himself With The Most Basic Of Things-a Place, Its People, And One Of Its Songs. -orion Pulitzer Finalist Maurice Manning Is At The Height Of His Powers As He Searches Through Layers Of Dreams, Imagination, And Memory To Reconnect With Oneself And One's Place In The Cosmos. Drawing Deep From His Kentucky Roots, Manning's Poems Are Peopled With Ordinary And Extraordinary Rural Characters, As He Gives Voice To A Region Well-loved And Full Of Tradition. From Something To Say About Possums: I've Taken So Many Backward Steps, I Have Believed History Can Be Explained, Only To Learn, Like Sin, It Can't. How I've Needed More And More Forgiveness! I've Needed Grace, And Followed It Into A Dream Of Green And Yellow Light Coming From A-way On High, Maybe A Mountain. Maurice Manning Is The Author Of Five Previous Books Of Poetry, Including The Common Man, A 2011 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, And Lawrence Booth's Book Of Visions, Winner Of The 2000 Yale Younger Poetry Series Award, Selected By W.s. Merwin. A Guggenheim Fellow, He Currently Teaches At Transylvania University And Is On The Permanent Faculty Of Warren Wilson College-- The Pinch -- Passion -- The Glass Eye -- Chapel On The Way To Hobo Town -- No. 9 Wire -- Sleep -- The Man In The Country Of His Dream -- Modernity -- Bridge On Unnamed Branch Of Big Goose Creek -- A Field Of Tiger Lilies In Kentucky -- Culture -- Coming Down Through The Woods After A Rain -- Something To Say About Possums -- The Geography Of Yonder -- Funeral, Country Church, Beside A Stream In Old Kentucky -- Theology -- Symbolism -- Going Back To Bimble -- Evangelism -- Birds Arriving In Dim Light -- Justice -- Provincial Thought -- An Apparition -- Patch Of Light In Deep Woods -- Southern City Poem, Early '70s -- Amid The Flood Of Mortal Ills Prevailing -- Obedience -- The Mark On The Wall -- The Woodcock -- The Gods -- Old-time Kentucky Salt-kettle Dream -- A Dream With Old Men Inside It -- Grammar -- Hill Philosophy -- Winter Work -- Another River Still -- A Portion Of The Cosmos In Kentucky -- The Wash -- Fog Over Beech Fork Valley -- Sunday School -- The Beginning -- Slow Class, Sixth Grade -- The Foster Boy -- Stream At Night -- Cathedral Up On Posey Ridge -- The Watching Tree. Maurice Manning.