Publisher Description

Bold and ambitious book to speak in the voice of Abraham Lincoln
As a poet Manning is passionate about using language as a way to articulate and assign meaning to experiences
Manning frequently finds himself writing lines in his sleep.
Manning grew up near Lincoln's birthplace and lived in the same county Lincoln's parents were married.
Manning's great grandfather liked to boast that he had voted for Lincoln, twice.
Just like Abraham Lincoln's first job was carpentry and cutting wood for fence rails, Manning started out as a carpenter as well.

Author Biography

Maurice Manning has been praised for his ability to transcribe the land and culture of his native Appalachia into six full length books of poetry. His first book, Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions, was selected by W.S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. His fourth book, The Common Man, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A former Guggenheim fellow, Manning teaches at Transylvania University and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives with his family in Kentucky.

Review

"Manning is at his best in quiet moments of stunning lyricism... There is a deep reverence for the ancestral spirit of the land, as if Kentucky's rich hills and flowing streams were a part of its residents' DNA. Manning's verse resonates with the plaintive loneliness of his rural landscapes and the divine presence that alleviates that loneliness, be it God, one's forebears, or poetry." — Publishers Weekly

"He nails his images the way a restless boy, up in a tree with a slingshot, nails anything sentient that wanders into view." — New York Times Book Review

"Myth-making is a more important business than what's true and false, and Manning's ability to transcend the problem so blithely on the strength of his overall conception is impressive." — Contemporary Poetry Review
"...within a few lines, the language becomes layered and hints at the constant intersection of the present and the eternal." — Washington Post

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Review Quote

"Manning is at his best in quiet moments of stunning lyricism... There is a deep reverence for the ancestral spirit of the land, as if Kentucky's rich hills and flowing streams were a part of its residents' DNA. Manning's verse resonates with the plaintive loneliness of his rural landscapes and the divine presence that alleviates that loneliness, be it God, one's forebears, or poetry." -- Publishers Weekly "He nails his images the way a restless boy, up in a tree with a slingshot, nails anything sentient that wanders into view." -- New York Times Book Review "Myth-making is a more important business than what's true and false, and Manning's ability to transcend the problem so blithely on the strength of his overall conception is impressive." -- Contemporary Poetry Review "...within a few lines, the language becomes layered and hints at the constant intersection of the present and the eternal." -- Washington Post

Excerpt from Book

To a Chigger O, itchy beast of tiny figure, when I scratched myself I made you bigger; though you began as but a chigger, you redder rose, a pistol-butt without a trigger, thus we were foes. In armpit high or ankle lower you left me last to be the knower that you were first to be the goer where sweat may trickle, and I was felled as by a mower with scythe and sickle. Though felled hyperbolizes, true, the minor wounds I got from you, the itchiness I felt undue, a fierce attacking I never would have dreamed to woo from one so lacking. Yet me you often so infested, I felt my life had been divested and bitterness I had ingested, in the hotter days of youth when meaning is contested in lofty ways. But in age and temperament I seasoned and with your kind I learned and reasoned, as an older dog contends with fleas and resolves the pest deserves its life, though it has treasoned, and takes his rest. You are a bug of southern climes yet strangely strode all through my times, symbolically, a bell whose chimes, in turn are grating, refusing love to find that rhymes are dull negating. Transcendentalism One of the things the actor's bullet failed to do is interrupt the rhythm of thought, the flow of the mind as it moves around an encumbrance or wears it down, as water patiently tames a rock and may, in time, pass through it freely. Contemplation is all there is of the afterlife, the mind continues steadily, not seeking decision or destination, unable to rest and yet at ease, because the thought is always lulling back and forth, as a boat gently rocking, following the rhythm of the world. Raindrops dripping off the eave are keeping eternal time. The capacity of the mind is oceanic, it laps and swells and subsides. The sun flares out of it and then extinguishes itself in the dark waters of thought, the divine ditty of the universe, the endless inner pitter-patter.

Description for Sales People

Bold and ambitious book to speak in the voice of Abraham Lincoln As a poet Manning is passionate about using language as a way to articulate and assign meaning to experiences Manning frequently finds himself writing lines in his sleep. Manning grew up near Lincoln's birthplace and lived in the same county Lincoln's parents were married. Manning's great grandfather liked to boast that he had voted for Lincoln, twice. Just like Abraham Lincoln's first job was carpentry and cutting wood for fence rails, Manning started out as a carpenter as well.

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