Bucolics - Paperback

by Maurice Manning (Author)

Untitled and unpunctuated, the seventy poems in this acclaimed collection seem to cascade from one page to another. Maurice Manning extolls the virtues of nature and its many gifts, and finds deep gratitude for the mysterious hand that created it all.

that bare branch that branch made black

by the rain the silver raindrop

hanging from the black branch

Boss I like that black branch

I like that shiny raindrop Boss

tell me if I'm wrong but it makes

me think you're looking right

at me now isn't that a lark for me

to think you look that way

upside down like a tree frog

Boss I'm not surprised at all

I wouldn't doubt it for

a minute you're always up

to something I'll say one thing

you're all right all right you are

even when you're hanging Boss

Front Jacket

Cascading from one page to another, the seventy poems in this collection read like alovesong to creation. Maurice Manning extolls the virtues of nature and its many gifts, and finds deep gratitude for the mysterious hand that created it all. Unpunctuated and untitled, the work wraps you in its reverie and reminds you of the many wonders all around us. Poetry like this is a celebration of life and language, of everything that is."

Back Jacket

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR "BUCOLICS"
""
"In these marvelous addresses to the Almighty, Maurice Manning reminds us of our agrarian roots and that our best metaphors for the ineffable all spring from the soil. These psalms, powerful and hectoring, tautological and unique, are reminiscent of King David's. They are spellbinding." --Mark Jarman, author of "To the Green Man"
PRAISE FOR THE POETRY OF MAURICE MANNING:
"A fresh and brilliant talent." W. S. MERWIN
""
""A Companion for Owls" conjures the historical D. Boone, Long Hunter, with astonishing intimacy and convincingness, while at the same time using him to stage profoundly nonhistorical scenes. The lucidity and surprise and soulfulness of their language embody an intelligence and sensibility attainable only in high art. Several times I have had to put "Owl "down with a shudder, and reload. This is thrilling work." -- James Baker Hall, poet laureate of Kentucky"

Author Biography

MAURICE MANNING's poems have appeared in the Southern Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the New Yorker, and his first collection of poems was awarded the Yale Younger Poets Award. He teaches English at Indiana University. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and Danville, Kentucky.