Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions (Yale Series of Younger Poets)

This year's winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Maurice Manning's Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions. These compelling poems take us on a wild ride through the life of a man-child in the rural South. Presenting a cast of allegorical, yet very real, characters, the poems have "authority, daring, and a language of colour and sure movement", says series judge W.S. Merwin. Maurice Manning is a native of Danville, Kentucky. He holds degrees from Earlham College, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Alabama, where he received his MFA in 1999. He has held a writing fellowship to The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He currently teaches English at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. From Seven Chimeras The way Booth makes a love story: same as a regular story, except under one rock is a trapdoor that leads to a room full of belly buttons; each must be pushed, one is a landmine. The way Booth makes hope: thirty-seven acres, Black Damon, Red Dog. Construct a pillar of fire in the Great Field and let it become unquenchable. The way Booth ends the Jack-in-the-Box charade: shoot the weasel in the neck and toss it to the buzzards. The way Booth thinks of salvation: God holding a broken abacus, coloured beads falling away.

This year's winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Maurice Manning's Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions. These compelling poems take us on a wild ride through the life of a man child in the rural South. Presenting a cast of allegorical and symbolic, yet very real, characters, the poems have "authority, daring, [and] a language of color and sure movement," says series judge W.S. Merwin.

Publishers Weekly

Lawrence Booth is a vigorous, trash-talking, frustrating and entirely made-up young man from a rural South that's equal parts carnivorous nightmare, Freudian pastoral and deep-fried family romance. Manning, who hails from Kentucky, becomes the latest in the venerable Yale Younger Poets series (now judged by W.S. Merwin) with these sometimes over-the-top, often surprisingly difficult poems about Lawrence's boyhood and youth in a "sweet tobacco, cornmeal, archetypal world." Sonnets, catalogues, shaped poems and non sequitur-filled rambles consider Booth's "gradeschool days," his vivid nights, his television-viewing habits, his explorations on foot, his difficult sister and his comic attacks on his region's heritage. Manning also depicts Lawrence's companions the vicious, overwhelming father Mad Daddy; Red Dog, a faithful dog; Missionary Woman, a love interest; God; the devil; and Black Damon, a young African-American who speaks seven of his own poems (called "Dreadful Chapter One," "Dreadful Chapter Two," and so on) in a deliberately outrageous minstrel dialect ("Red Dog barkie echo plum back to the house"). Manning's mesh of voices, fears and incidents (not to mention his blackface moments) recalls John Berryman's Dream Songs, and Merwin notes the similarities in a perceptive foreword. Yet Manning's adventurously uneven verses bring him close to ambitious Southerners, from Robert Penn Warren to Frank Stanford; his often antirealist forms seek to capture a South many people will find incredible. (Aug.) Forecast: Merwin's third pick for Yale since becoming its judge is also his second Southern-set, book-length sequence in a row, following last year's Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs. Yale'sprestigious first-book series reached its peak in the '50s, when then-judge W.H. Auden picked (among others) Ashbery, Hollander, Rich and Merwin himself. But with the right regional and national publicity, this uneven volume could do well. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Contents......Page 8 Foreword by W. S. Merwin......Page 11 Acknowledgments......Page 17 ONE......Page 18 Bellwether......Page 20 Dramatis Personae......Page 22 Wave......Page 24 The Hobos......Page 25 Dreadful Chapter One......Page 26 Envoy......Page 27 Octagon......Page 29 Ace......Page 30 Prisoner of Conscience......Page 31 Leather-Stocking......Page 33 Dreadful Chapter Two......Page 34 Proof......Page 35 Shady Grove......Page 37 A Prayer Against Forgetting Boys......Page 38 Seventeen......Page 40 Progress Report......Page 42 Ontology......Page 44 Pontiac......Page 45 Dreadful Chapter Three......Page 46 Strait......Page 47 Quantum Cowboy......Page 48 Beck......Page 49 Analog......Page 50 Siding......Page 51 A Condensed History of Beauty......Page 53 TWO......Page 56 Pegasus......Page 58 Antimatter......Page 59 Dreadful Chapter Four......Page 60 Allegory......Page 61 Affirmation......Page 63 Future Booth......Page 64 Raptor......Page 65 Dreadful Chapter Five......Page 66 Seven Chimeras......Page 67 Act V, scene iv......Page 69 Calumet......Page 71 Complaint......Page 72 Dreadful Chapter Six......Page 74 Like a Tree......Page 75 THREE......Page 76 Exodusman......Page 78 Missive......Page 79 Canis Apologetica......Page 81 Dreadful Chapter Seven......Page 82 The Bootleggers......Page 83 Feud......Page 84 Schism......Page 85 Look Away......Page 86 Airlift, 1971......Page 87 Braves......Page 88 Eclipse......Page 89 Raid......Page 90 Relief......Page 92 Reserve......Page 93 Dovetail......Page 94 A Dream of Ash and Soot......Page 96 Pilgrims......Page 97 Winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, Maurice Mannings Lawrence Booths Book of Visions takes us on a wild ride through the life of a man child in the rural South. Presenting a cast of allegorical and symbolic, yet very real, characters, the poems have authority, daring, [and] a language of color and sure movement, says series judge W.S. Merwin. From Seven Chimeras The way Booth makes a love story: same as a regular story, except under one rock is a trapdoor that leads to a room full of belly buttons; each must be pushed, one is a landmine. The way Booth makes hope: thirty-seven acres, Black Damon, Red Dog. Construct a pillar of fire in the Great Field and let it become unquenchable. The way Booth ends the Jack-in-the-Box charade: shoot the weasel in the neck and toss it to the buzzards. The way Booth thinks of salvation: God holding a broken abacus, colored beads falling away. These compelling poems take the reader on a wild ride through the life of a man child in the rural South. The poems present a cast of allegorical and symbolic, yet very real, characters. The work won the "Yale Series of Younger Poets" competition.