Snakedoctor / Maurice Manning.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Manning, Maurice, 1943- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry.

English poetry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (0 pages)

Place of Publication:

Port Townsend, Washington : Copper Canyon Press, [2023]

Summary:

From church barn to apple orchard, from snow-covered pasture to secret moonshine cabin, Manning's Snakedoctor reinvigorates the Kentucky pastoral through poems that find light in shadow, good in evil, love in a father's stinging blow. Maurice Manning returns to the Kentucky countryside in his eighth collection, Snakedoctor . Existing between haunting memory and pastoral dreamscape, this quiet collection showcases Manning's storytelling at its finest. Simple, four-beat lines hold epiphanies--"the barn is just an empty church"-- and announce visits from seven-foot strangers named Mr. True. Here, God is reimagined as a "serious banjo player" who calls the world to sing. And sing Manning does. Through rhyme, blues, and haiku, Snakedoctor trains our ears to hear music in the mundane, to find beauty all around us: in the annotated margins of a well-read book, the flight of a father's shadow puppet, the yellow centers of daisies. Punctuated by rain's pitter-patter on a tin wash tub, and the "ring of lonely" in a farmer's voice as he calls his cattle home, Snakedoctor is a collection that will leave you wanting to dog-ear its pages. From childhood to fatherhood, church barn to apple orchard, moonshine to moonbeam, we leave these poems understanding Manning's wish: "I wanted to make a prayer and I did, / in half-sleep after the dream."

Contents:

Intro

Title Page

Note to the Reader

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Contents

Sugar

Reading a Book in the Woods

A Crooked Star in Pencil on a Page

Three Landscapes

The Gospel of Happiness

Greenbrier

The Moon Is Still in the Sky

Licks

Mr. True

Snakedoctor

White Oak Shadow Half a Mile Away

I've Got Those Mean Old No. 10 Washtub Blues

Moving through the House

Walking into the Distance

The Gospel of Music

Two Shadows

A Flâneurish Phrase

Thermopylae

Like Flicks of Flame

Blind Tiger

Planting Trees in God's Country

Randy Woodred

Crutch

The Golden Treachery of Poetry

Fishing with the Old Lady

Eavesdropping, Early Morning, Everything Alive

Pastoral

Fixed It with a Nickel

A Cackalacky Yardbird Reconsidered

Haiku

300 Days and Nights of Fog

Arriving at the Village of Turn-Around-Town

Inquiry of Brother Paul across the Hills

The Knot

The Latch

Feather Pillow

Turner

After All These Years My Woman's Done Got Voluptuous

My Left Side

Mister Blake's Skin Don't Dirt

The Red Chair

Rain

The Pencil Lead in My Father's Finger

Art

A Penitentiary Rocking Chair

The Daytime Ghost

Sinner Man

The Draw

Blue Hole

A Genuine Davy Crockett Coonskin Cap

Hay Rake

Painting

As Plucking Blackberries in the Face

After Reading Charles Wright, I Turn Out the Light and Listen to the Rain

Beauty

Yellow Time

Bluebird Egg

The Garden

Chicken Bristle

Little Darling

Violets in the Fall

Frog Eyes

Paraphrase of Judges 19 and Following, RSV

Canebrake Love and Water

Mad-Face MacLeish

Collards

Pissing in the Rain

Translation

The Handle

A Little Red Book

An Orchard at the Bottom of a Hill

Three Old Mountain Women

The Age of Reason

An Iron Ring Fastened to a Rail in the Barn.

Mumblety-Peg

Soup

Dog-Ear

About the Author

Books by Maurice Manning

Copyright

Special Thanks.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Manning, Maurice Snakedoctor

ISBN:

1-61932-279-X

OCLC:

1409712581