Back in 1991 I got a job as a student working at the University of Kentucky library. Working the Saturday night shift I made friends with a woman in the English PhD program. Through her I met other PhD students and soon a group of us had decided to start a small writing group on campus. It was a fun group of people and I relish that college experience. One of the leaders of the group was a man named Maurice Manning. Maurice was the best poet I had ever met and unlike most people I knew who dabbled with writing he was fully committed to it. Any free time he had was spent writing and re-writing his work and the work paid off. I was happy to recently learn that his latest book The Common Man, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry this past year.
One thing I always liked about Maurice's poetry was the true feeling he put into his words. Maurice grew up in rural Kentucky and loved his youth. He loved his family, loved his neighbors, and loved Kentucky. Luckily for us he was born with a poetic voice and he has chosen to use that voice to bring to the world his vision of the Kentucky he grew up in. The Common Man is a collection of poems inspired by that world.
I found this poem of his on the Internet. I don't think it's in the collection referenced above, but I liked it:
ReplyDeleteSAD AND ALONE, by Maurice Manning
Well this is nothing new, nothing
to rattle the rafters in the noggin,
this moment of remembering
and its kissing cousin the waking dream.
I wonder if I'll remember it?
I've had a vision of a woman
reclining underneath a tree:
she's about half naked and little by little
I'm sprinkling her burial mounds
with grass. This is the kind of work
I like. It lets me remember, and so
I do. I remember the time I laid
my homemade banjo in the fire
and let it burn. There was nothing else
to burn and the house was cold;
the cigar box curled inside the flames.
But the burst of heat was over soon,
and once the little roar was done,
I could hear the raindrops plopping up
the buckets and kettles, scattered out
like little ponds around the room.
It was night and I was a boy, alone
and left to listen to that old music.
I liked it. I've liked it ever since.
I loved the helpless people I loved.
That's what a little boy will do,
but a grown man will turn it all
to sadness and let it soak his heart
until he wrings it out and dreams
about another kind of love,
some afternoon beneath a tree.
Burial mounds -- that's hilarious.
Source: Poetry (Oct. 2008)
This is great news. Hooray for Maurice Manning. Where's he from?
ReplyDeleteHe was born in Danville in 1966.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he was on the Boyle County team that beat us in the Academic Challenge.
ReplyDeleteThe Rebels!
ReplyDeleteToday is National Bird Day, per my sister-in-law. Here's a poem I once wrote about a bird in my neighborhood.
“For Thine Is The Kingdom”
June 16, 2005
“For thine is the kingdom,” I was praying
when distracted by the early bird
Rob-bob-bob-in bobbed down a neighbor’s drive
and offered a chipper tweet (cute!)
But then I saw the worm,
Writhing in fear, on the barren, concrete expanse.
Undulating. Rolling away madly for its meager worm life (futile!)
Peck, stabbed the robin
And the injured worm twisted, throbbed, folded
Peckpeck, stabbed the robin
And the pierced worm seemed to loose a silent wail
Peckpeckpeck, stabbed the robin
And the resigned worm surrendered, skewered on the beak
The bird gurgled and swallowed, and you could see the worm slither
down the rob-bob-bob-in-red throat.
Food.
(Was that a burp?)
Done, the early bird caught me looking and cocked its head
“I am what I am.”
I like your poem.
ReplyDeleteHi Matthew - Thank you for sharing Maurice Manning with us. I enjoyed the poem you posted and am thrilled to know of a poet that speaks to how we know (knew?) the Commonwealth. Am also looking forward to buying this at the local bookstore down the street.
ReplyDelete"It lets me remember, and so I do."
Thanks again, Matthew.
- Jackie
Maurice Manning is coming back to the Commonwealth!
ReplyDelete"The kind of conservatism we practice here in Washington County," per Maurice Manning via The New York Times.
ReplyDelete