Waltzing Through the Endtime

Waltzing Through the Endtime PDF Author: David Bottoms
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
In these 14 poems, David Bottoms waltzes through the "Christ-haunted South" and highlights how and where the afterlife intersects our daily lives. In a strong and musical voice, Bottoms, the poet laureate of Georgia, modernizes the narrative traditions of the American South. He encounters the ghosts of musicians and recounts strange instances of religious visitation: From "Vigilance": Like my neighbor again who grew a yellow rose wilted with the sign of the cross, or his sister in Biloxi who once saw the virgin swimming in a bowl of vegetable soup. Accolades, yes, to Ramona Barreras of Phoenix, Arizona, who pulled from her oven in 1977 a tortilla scorched with the face of Christ, which may or may not have been the face that appeared some ten years later in Bras D'Or on an outside wall of a Tim Horton's Restaurant, though both made the papers and drew their share of pilgrims. "What does it mean," Bottoms asks, "that God keeps stamping his image on pastry and French toast, on biscuits lightly burned around the edges?" At the core of this book is a seeker, a person trying to make sense out of an unintelligible world, confronting the darkest dimensions of human nature, and writing a gorgeous, meta-physically charged poetry. David Bottoms, the Poet Laureate of Georgia, teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is the author of four books of poems and founding editor of Five Points magazine. His work has been featured on National Public Radio and on The Southern Voice, a television series profiling Southern writers.

Waltzing Through the Endtime

Waltzing Through the Endtime PDF Author: David Bottoms
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 88

Get Book

Book Description
In these 14 poems, David Bottoms waltzes through the "Christ-haunted South" and highlights how and where the afterlife intersects our daily lives. In a strong and musical voice, Bottoms, the poet laureate of Georgia, modernizes the narrative traditions of the American South. He encounters the ghosts of musicians and recounts strange instances of religious visitation: From "Vigilance": Like my neighbor again who grew a yellow rose wilted with the sign of the cross, or his sister in Biloxi who once saw the virgin swimming in a bowl of vegetable soup. Accolades, yes, to Ramona Barreras of Phoenix, Arizona, who pulled from her oven in 1977 a tortilla scorched with the face of Christ, which may or may not have been the face that appeared some ten years later in Bras D'Or on an outside wall of a Tim Horton's Restaurant, though both made the papers and drew their share of pilgrims. "What does it mean," Bottoms asks, "that God keeps stamping his image on pastry and French toast, on biscuits lightly burned around the edges?" At the core of this book is a seeker, a person trying to make sense out of an unintelligible world, confronting the darkest dimensions of human nature, and writing a gorgeous, meta-physically charged poetry. David Bottoms, the Poet Laureate of Georgia, teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is the author of four books of poems and founding editor of Five Points magazine. His work has been featured on National Public Radio and on The Southern Voice, a television series profiling Southern writers.

David Bottoms

David Bottoms PDF Author: William Walsh
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786485272
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The South has a long tradition of great writers who remain in the South, transforming the local landscape into a universal one. Currently Poet Laureate of Georgia, David Bottoms is one of the South's most revered poets. The fifteen critical essays in this collection set out to examine the images and themes revealed in his poetry and fiction. Topics include the role of rebirth and resurrection, the presence of faith in the poems, masculinity and gender, and race in the South.

A Scrap in the Blessings Jar

A Scrap in the Blessings Jar PDF Author: David Bottoms
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807180750
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
A Scrap in the Blessings Jar, a volume of new and selected poems by David Bottoms, captures the evolution of the poet’s spiritual quest over the past fifty years. A native and longtime resident of Georgia, Bottoms draws inspiration from the American South, and his work examines themes related to family dynamics, the woods, animals, fishing, and music in an effort to, as he once told an interviewer, “reveal something about the hidden things of the world, the vague or shadowy relationships and connections that exist just below the surface of our daily lives.” This book charts his progression from tightly wrought naturalistic narratives to works that reflect his shifting conception of the interplay between memory, the present, and the metaphysical. At heart, Bottoms remains a storyteller who employs figurative language to discover the extraordinary in the seemingly mundane, and whose poetry explores the depths of our existential condition and common humanity.

The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry in English

The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry in English PDF Author: Jeremy Noel-Tod
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199640254
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 727

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Book Description
This impressive volume provides over 1,700 biographical entries on poets writing in English from 1910 to the present day, including T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and Carol Ann Duffy. Authoritative and accessible, it is a must-have for students of English and creative writing, as well as for anyone with an interest in poetry.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia Companion to Georgia Literature

The New Georgia Encyclopedia Companion to Georgia Literature PDF Author: Hugh Ruppersburg
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820343005
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
Georgia has played a formative role in the writing of America. Few states have produced a more impressive array of literary figures, among them Conrad Aiken, Erskine Caldwell, James Dickey, Joel Chandler Harris, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Jean Toomer, and Alice Walker. This volume contains biographical and critical discussions of Georgia writers from the nineteenth century to the present as well as other information pertinent to Georgia literature. Organized in alphabetical order by author, the entries discuss each author's life and work, contributions to Georgia history and culture, and relevance to wider currents in regional and national literature. Lists of recommended readings supplement most entries. Especially important Georgia books have their own entries: works of social significance such as Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit, international publishing sensations like Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, and crowning artistic achievements including Jean Toomer's Cane. The literary culture of the state is also covered, with information on the Georgia Review and other journals; the Georgia Center for the Book, which promotes authors and reading; and the Townsend Prize, given in recognition of the year's best fiction. This is an essential volume for readers who want both to celebrate and learn more about Georgia's literary heritage.

Southern Writers

Southern Writers PDF Author: Joseph M. Flora
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807148555
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
This new edition of Southern Writers assumes its distinguished predecessor's place as the essential reference on literary artists of the American South. Broadly expanded and thoroughly revised, it boasts 604 entries-nearly double the earlier edition's-written by 264 scholars. For every figure major and minor, from the venerable and canonical to the fresh and innovative, a biographical sketch and chronological list of published works provide comprehensive, concise, up-to-date information. Here in one convenient source are the South's novelists and short story writers, poets and dramatists, memoirists and essayists, journalists, scholars, and biographers from the colonial period to the twenty-first century. What constitutes a "southern writer" is always a matter for debate. Editors Joseph M. Flora and Amber Vogel have used a generous definition that turns on having a significant connection to the region, in either a personal or literary sense. New to this volume are younger writers who have emerged in the quarter century since the dictionary's original publication, as well as older talents previously unknown or unacknowledged. For almost every writer found in the previous edition, a new biography has been commissioned. Drawn from the very best minds on southern literature and covering the full spectrum of its practitioners, Southern Writers is an indispensable reference book for anyone intrigued by the subject.

Clairvoyant with Hunger

Clairvoyant with Hunger PDF Author: Laurence Lieberman
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1680030922
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
The book leads off with fourteen short essays on poems from James Dickey’s last book, The Eagle’s Mile, twelve short essays on James Wright’s best prose poems, a long essay on Dickey’s third novel, To the White Sea, a long essay on W. S. Merwin’s 320 page poem, The Folding Cliffs, an essay on the major Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, a familiar essay on the Japanese poet Ryuichi Tamura, whose work Lieberman translated for publication during his fellowship year in Japan (1971-1972), an essay on four poets for Stephen Bert’s anthology on Marianne Moore, Theodore Roethke, D. H. Lawrence, and Hart Crane; a long essay on the work of poet David Bottoms; and Lieberman’s own interview for a special feature of his work in Fifth Wednesday Journal in Chicago, Spring 2014. The essays range in location from Chicago to Atlanta, Iraq, and Japan. "In prose free of either jargon or agenda, Lieberman reads and illuminates our poetries according to one pure clear criterion: excellence. I know of no other critic who could so wonderfully combine negative capability and passion in order to create such generous insight." —Donald Revell, Poetry editor, The Colorado Review "I believe the best of Lieberman's essays equal Stevens' most shattering and inspiring prose: we understand reality as well as literature with a more humane sense of what we are, which is how revelations of empathetic intelligence, rare as they are, function for us." —Stephen Berg, founding editor of The American Poetry Review "Laurence Lieberman, himself an excellent poet, is one of the most intelligent and perceptive critics of poetry to be found today. His studies of contemporary poets are extraordinary feats of imaginative mediation. Immersing himself totally in the fullness of the work, giving himself to it with a receptiveness and sensitivity that are almost uncanny, he attains understanding in depth—and from the vantage point of an inner identification explains, clarifies, connects. He is just about the best reader a poet can hope for, and through his criticism he shares his great gift with others." —Frederick Morgan, founding editor of The Hudson Review

Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club

Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club PDF Author: Kevin Cantwell
Publisher: Mercer University Press
ISBN: 0881462519
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club includes a poet laureate of Georgia and of the United States¿and the poet who read at President Clinton¿s second inauguration. The oldest was born in 1905 and the two youngest in that ominous year of American history, 1968. The Pulitzer-winning Stanley Kunitz wrote a famous poem about the Indian Mounds. Miller Williams, father of the Grammy winning Lucinda Williams, lived in Macon in the early 1960s and became a friend of Flannery O¿Connor. In the late 1970s, soon after his Mercer days, David Bottoms writes the poems for Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump and wins the Walt Whitman Award. Jud Mitcham wins the Devins Award for his first book, Somewhere in Ecclesiastes, and Seaborn Jones is doing his stint with Mister Rogers¿ Neighborhood and would later connect, in San Francisco, to one of the last pure lines of surrealism in American expression. Several poets came out of Macon or arrived in Macon soon after. Between Mercer University and Macon State College the activity of poetry in Macon thrived. Adrienne Bond wrote her seminal poems and started up the Georgia Poetry Circuit. Judith Ortiz Cofer passed through Macon State at the brink of her position at the University of Georgia and in American letters as an important artistic spokesperson for women¿s experience. From Bruce Beasley and his hybrid poetics, to Stephen Bluestone and his learned craft in the lyric poem, this book presents a selection for all students of Southern Literature some of the best poems of other poets, too, like Anya Silver, Amanda Pecor, Marjorie Becker, and the late Reginald Shepherd who was as well-known at his early death as any poet of his generation. Many of these poets studied with and knew the important poets of their time. The poems, nevertheless, speak for themselves.

Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch

Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch PDF Author: David Bottoms
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
ISBN: 1619321882
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
“[Bottoms] makes astounding leaps of both faith and doubt, and does so with insight, honesty, and flashes of anger—all characteristic elements of his work.” —The Southern Review “One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern poems: clear narratives . . . evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise.” —Library Journal “Bottoms’ poems do what the best poems have always done: They compel us to reread them. They linger in our minds. They alter our perception of the world.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution David Bottoms explores otherness, the death of parents, and private spirituality. Images of rural Georgia confront the changing landscape of his memories where he searches for refuge in quiet places of prayer. Rooted in nature, Bottoms’ poetry affirms the “tenuous ways tenderness seeps into the world” and the loneliness inherent in memory. Memory is “smoke off a damp fire” as Bottoms explores absence, a contemplative inner life, and changing landscapes. From “An Absence”: Yes, things happen in the cool white spaces, those moments you turn your head – the way the trembling branch suggests the owl, or the print by the pond suggests the fox. Near the end, though, only one thing matters, and nothing, not even the fox, moves as quietly. David Bottoms is the author of eight books of poetry and has received the Walt Whitman Award, fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and served as Poet Laureate of Georgia for twelve years. He currently holds the Amos Distinguished Chair in English at Georgia State University.

American Poetry Now

American Poetry Now PDF Author: Ed Ochester
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822978180
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
American Poetry Now is a comprehensive collection of the best work from the renowned Pitt Poetry Series. Since its inception in 1967, the series has been a vehicle for America's finest contemporary poets. The series list includes Poet Laureate Billy Collins, Toi Derricotte, Denise Duhamel, Lynn Emanuel, Bob Hicok, Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser, Larry Levis, Sharon Olds, Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Virgil Suarez, Afaa Michael Weaver, David Wojahn, Dean Young, and many others. Throughout its forty-year history, the Pitt Poetry Series has provided a voice for the diversity that is American poetry, representing poets from many backgrounds without allegiance to any one school or style. American Poetry Now is a true representation of contemporary American poetry. Ed Ochester, series editor for nearly thirty years, has assembled a quintessential selection-along with biographies and photos, an enlightening introduction, and a suggested list for further reading, all in a highly accessible format. American Poetry Now is a sweeping anthology that will delight poetry fans, students, teachers, and general readers alike.