A Little Salvation: Poems Old and New

by Mitcham, Judson

• ISBN13: 9780820330389
• ISBN10: 0820330388
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-25
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

This new collection from acclaimed novelist and poet Judson Mitcham features poems from the last twenty-five years, including forty new works and poems from his previously published collections,Somewhere in Ecclesiastes(1991) andThis April Day(2003). Wise, witty, and deceptively plainspoken, Mitcham's poems show how the moments that truly save us--that make us human--are necessarily the most fleeting. It is up to us, he reminds us, to create meaning from those moments, and in doing so to create our own salvation.The transitory nature of human experience is both the boon and the bane of the existence of the speakers in these poems, and every poem seems to recognize its own temporality, trying to find meaning rather than a definitive answer to the questions it raises. The tone of these poems combines a strong sense of humor with a pervasive feeling of loss, both celebrating and mourning that "a true note is still so hard to hit." These voices revel in the human condition even as they are often saddened by it.While Mitcham's background and settings are distinctly southern, his interests extend far beyond the regional. He intimately understands the problems and the people of the South but recognizes that these are, above all, human problems and human beings. His poems evoke Flannery O'Connor, Otis Redding, the Bible, and the Baptist Church, but they also respond to Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, and the death of Jacques Derrida.

Author Biography

Judson Mitcham’s poems have appeared in Poetry, the Georgia Review, and Harper’s. His novels, The Sweet Everlasting and Sabbath Creek, are both winners of the Townsend Prize for Fiction. He teaches writing at Mercer University.

Table of Contents

Art	p. 3
Body	p. 5
Close	p. 7
Clown	p. 8
Dead	p. 9
Directive	p. 11
Dream	p. 12
Epilogue	p. 14
Etiquette	p. 15
Forever	p. 16
Gift	p. 18
Grace	p. 19
History	p. 21
Hymn	p. 22
Idiom	p. 23
Ignorance	p. 24
Jubilate	p. 25
June	p. 27
K	p. 28
Lyric	p. 29
Mad	p. 30
Message	p. 31
Never	p. 32
Night	p. 33
Obituary	p. 34
Plot	p. 35
Praise	p. 36
Promise	p. 37
Question	p. 38
Risen	p. 39
Sunday	p. 40
Tennessee	p. 41
Timing	p. 42
Toast	p. 43
True	p. 44
Understanding	p. 46
Village	p. 48
Villanelle	p. 49
Wrong	p. 50
X	p. 51
Young	p. 52
Zero	p. 53
Notes for a Prayer in June	p. 57
Wonder	p. 60
The Touch	p. 61
Laments	p. 62
Rocking Anna to Sleep	p. 64
Night Ride, 1965	p. 65
On the Oris Redding Bridge	p. 66
Home	p. 67
Playground in the Rain	p. 68
In the Kingdom of the Air	p. 69
Somewhere in Ecclesiastes	p. 70
Explanations	p. 80
About Women	p. 82
What You Have Need Of	p. 84
Where We Are	p. 85
Nature	p. 87
Driving Home from the Clinic	p. 91
A Knowledge of Water	p. 92
Loss of Power	p. 93
Sunday Evenings	p. 94
The Beginning of Heaven	p. 95
Last Words	p. 96
Sunday	p. 97
History of Rain	p. 107
Preface to an Omnibus Review	p. 108
The Mystery	p. 110
Philosophy, with Illustrations	p. 111
Comedian	p. 112
Two Poems for My Father	p. 114
Peace on Earth	p. 116
Halloween at the Nursing Home	p. 117
Writing	p. 118
In Memory of Adrienne Bond	p. 119
Homage	p. 120
Boys Playing Ball after Dark	p. 122
The Funerals of Strangers	p. 123
Together	p. 124
The Drifting Blue	p. 125
Click	p. 126
Some Words for Bill Matthews	p. 128
The Question	p. 129
The Foolishness of God Is Wiser Than Men	p. 134
Elegy for a Young Poet	p. 135
A World Beneath	p. 136
Prayer	p. 140
Calvin's Wife	p. 141
Going Home	p. 143
Laughter	p. 144
The Widows Desire	p. 146
The Multitude	p. 150
Home	p. 152
Surrender	p. 153
A Postcard to My Father	p. 154
In the Sweet By and By	p. 155
An Introduction	p. 158
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.