The Made Thing: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern Poetry

by Stokesbury, Leon

• ISBN13: 9781557285782
• ISBN10: 1557285780
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Arkansas Pr

Summary

When the first edition of The Made Thing was published in 1987, it was met with wide acclaim. Finally, there was an impressive anthology of contemporary southern poets that included works of established poets as well as newer, uncelebrated names. Over ten years later, almost all of those "lesser-known" poets have developed national reputations, and The Made Thing has become one of the best-selling books published by the University of Arkansas Press.The second edition features twelve new poets as well as new work by Donald Justice, T. R. Hummer, Dave Smith, Pattiann Rogers, Andrew Hudgins, Henry Taylor, Gerald Barrax, Rodney Jones and others. Among the new additions are Mark Jarman, Cathy Smith Bowers, and Charlie Smith.Many teachers realize that the best way to get their students to relate to poetry is to show them poems that contain landscapes and subjects they understand and can identify with. Leon Stokesbury has put together a richly varied collection used in classrooms not only in the South but all over the country as a means of studying the important influence of southern poetry on American literature.With the publication of the second edition of The Made Thing, Stokesbury has marked the end of the twentieth century and the rise to prominence of southern writers. This collection serves as a substantial sampling of poets whose works span more than five decades and who explore the rich personal and cultural history that extends beyond the boundaries of the South.

Table of Contents

Preface	xxiii
Ralph Adamo
My Answer	3	(2)
By His Appearance in San Diego, Gerald Ford Recalls the Bringing Together of Father and Son	5	(1)
Gift of the Guest	5	(2)
Us, Here, Ruled	7	(1)
Betty Adcock
Roller Rink	8	(1)
Walking Out	9	(1)
Twentieth Anniversary	10	(1)
Southbound	11	(2)
Claudia Emerson Andrews
Stable	13	(1)
Plagues	14	(1)
Cleaning the Graves	15	(1)
James Applewhite
My Grandfather's Funeral	16	(2)
White Lake	18	(1)
Marriage Portrait	18	(2)
Barbecue Service	20	(1)
Alvin Aubert
Economics	21	(1)
How It's Done	22	(1)
Silence	22	(1)
Gerald Barrax
Gift	23	(1)
``I had a terror---since September''	24	(1)
Two Figures on Canvas	24	(1)
Portraits	25	(1)
What More?	25	(2)
Body Food	27	(1)
John Bensko
The Wild Horses of Assateague Island	28	(1)
Watching TV, the Elk Bones Up on Metaphysics	29	(1)
The Elk on Mutability	30	(1)
The Elk Uncovers the Heavens	31	(1)
Wendell Berry
The Peace of Wild Things	32	(1)
To Know the Dark	33	(1)
The Grandmother	33	(1)
Grief	34	(1)
David Bottoms
Under the Boathouse	35	(1)
The Boy Shepherds' Simile	36	(1)
Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt	37	(1)
The Desk	38	(2)
Under the Vulture-Tree	40	(1)
Allatoona Evening	41	(1)
Cathy Smith Bowers
Aphasia	42	(2)
Namesake	44	(1)
Mother Land	45	(1)
Groceries	45	(1)
Orchids	46	(2)
Learning How to Pray	48	(1)
Van K. Brock
Novas	49	(2)
Departure	51	(1)
Lying on a Bridge	51	(1)
The Man in the Rain	52	(1)
Jack Butler
Preserves	53	(1)
No News at All	54	(1)
Subplot	55	(1)
A Prayer to Sleep	56	(1)
One Reason for Stars	57	(1)
Turner Cassity
U-24 Anchors off New Orleans (1938)	58	(1)
Professionals	59	(1)
Flying Friendly Skies	60	(1)
Berlin-to-Bagdad (Constantinople, 1876)	61	(1)
Fred Chappell
My Grandmother Washes Her Feet	62	(4)
Cleaning the Well	66	(3)
My Grandmother Washes Her Vessels	69	(2)
Second Wind	71	(4)
My Mother Shoots the Breeze	75	(2)
My Father Washes His Hands	77	(2)
Narcissus and Echo	79	(1)
Stephen Corey
Ars Poetica	80	(1)
For the Spreading Laurel Tree	81	(1)
The Tempest	82	(1)
Kate Daniels
Disjunction	83	(1)
Farewell to the Maiden	84	(1)
James Dickey
The Heaven of Animals	85	(2)
The Hospital Window	87	(2)
In the Mountain Tent	89	(1)
Cherrylog Road	90	(3)
The Shark's Parlor	93	(2)
The Sheep Child	95	(2)
Falling	97	(5)
False Youth: Autumn: Clothes of the Age	102	(1)
R. H. W. Dillard
The Mullins Farm	103	(2)
Meditation for a Pickle Suite	105	(1)
Maudelle Driskell
Mr. Turnbill to the Loggerheads	106	(2)
Talismans	108	(1)
George Garrett
The Magi	109	(1)
Revival	110	(1)
Bubbles	111	(1)
York Harbor Morning	112	(1)
Buzzard	113	(1)
Margaret Gibson
The Onion	114	(1)
Invisible Work	115	(1)
Country Woman Elegy	116	(1)
R. S. Gwynn
Body Bags	117	(2)
Approaching a Significant Birthday, He Peruses The Norton Anthology of Poetry	119	(1)
Among Philistines	120	(2)
1-800	122	(1)
The Denouement	123	(1)
Jim Hall
Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too	124	(1)
White Trash	125	(1)
Preposterous	126	(1)
Andrew Hudgins
At the Piano	127	(1)
Where the River Jordan Ends	128	(1)
The Southern Crescent Was On Time	129	(2)
Around the Campfire	131	(2)
Burial Detail	133	(2)
Heat Lightning in a Time of Drought	135	(3)
T. R. Hummer
Inner Ear	138	(2)
The Beating	140	(1)
What Shines in Winter Burns	141	(2)
Where You Go When She Sleeps	143	(1)
Zeitgeist Lightning	144	(1)
Mechanics	145	(2)
Mark Jarman
After Disappointment	147	(1)
Unholy Sonnet #2	148	(1)
Questions for Ecclesiastes	148	(3)
Stars	151	(1)
Rodney Jones
Sweep	152	(2)
The Mosquito	154	(1)
The First Birth	155	(1)
A Blasphemy	156	(1)
One of the Citizens	157	(2)
Donald Justice
Sonnet: The Poet at Seven	159	(1)
In Bertram's Garden	160	(1)
Heart	160	(1)
Men at Forty	161	(1)
First Death	162	(2)
Tremayne	164	(2)
There Is a Gold Light in Certain Old Paintings	166	(1)
Thinking About the Past	167	(1)
Etheridge Knight
He Sees Through Stone	168	(1)
The Warden Said to Me the Other Day	169	(1)
As You Leave Me	170	(1)
Yusef Komunyakaa
We Never Know	171	(1)
Ia Drang Valley	172	(1)
Saigon Bar Girls, 1975	173	(1)
Facing It	174	(1)
Rick Lott
The Apple Pickers' Children	175	(2)
Invisible Men	177	(1)
Susan Ludvigson
Some Notes on Courage	178	(1)
The Widow	179	(2)
Man Arrested in Hacking Death Tells Police He Mistook Mother-in-Law for Raccoon	181	(1)
The Punishment	182	(1)
Jeanne d'Arc	183	(1)
After Thirty Octobers	184	(1)
Everette Maddox
The Great Man's Death: An Anecdote	185	(1)
Breakfast	186	(1)
Style	186	(1)
The Miracle	187	(1)
Disaster Poem	188	(1)
1941	189	(1)
Cleopatra Mathis
Elegy for the Other	190	(6)
Walter Mcdonald
Never in My Life	196	(2)
Hauling Over Wolf Creek Pass in Winter	198	(1)
Starting a Pasture	199	(2)
Crossing the Road	201	(1)
Jo Mcdougall
Story	202	(1)
How We Live	203	(1)
On Catalpa Street	203	(1)
Heather Ross Miller
Tap Water	204	(1)
Twila Jo and the Wrestler	205	(2)
Jim Wayne Miller
Closing the House	207	(1)
Hanging Burley	208	(1)
Squirrel Stand	208	(1)
The Hungry Dead	209	(1)
Vassar Miller
Reciprocity	210	(1)
Beside a Deathbed	211	(1)
Bout with Burning	211	(1)
from Love's Bitten Tongue
``Lord, hush this ego as one stops a bell''	212	(1)
``Of praying may (in mercy become prayer)''	212	(1)
William Mills
Pity	213	(1)
Motel	214	(1)
Rituals Along the Arkansas	214	(2)
The Necessity of Falling	216	(1)
Judson Mitcham
Nightride, 1965	217	(1)
The Touch	218	(1)
In the Kingdom of the Air	219	(1)
Last Words	220	(1)
Robert Morgan
The Hollow	221	(1)
Mountain Bride	222	(1)
Death Crown	223	(1)
Walnutry	224	(1)
Passenger Pigeons	225	(1)
The Gift of Tongues	226	(1)
Delisa Mulkey
A History of Silk	227	(2)
Eulogy for a Snake Handler Killed By a Canebrake	229	(3)
Naomi Shihab Nye
New Year	232	(1)
Sure	233	(2)
The Traveling Onion	235	(1)
Hello	235	(2)
Going for Peaches, Fredericksburg, Texas	237	(2)
Brenda Marie Osbey
The Wastrel-Woman Poem	239	(2)
Thelma	241	(1)
``In These Houses of Swift Easy Women''	242	(1)
Portrait	242	(5)
Paula Rankin
Hot Bath in an Old Hotel	247	(1)
Middle Age	248	(1)
Pattiann Rogers
In Order to Perceive	249	(2)
Concepts and Their Bodies (The Boy in the Field Alone)	251	(1)
A Giant Has Swallowed the Earth	252	(1)
The Possible Salvation of Continuous Motion	253	(1)
Achieving Perspective	254	(1)
Discovering Your Subject	255	(1)
Finding the Tattooed Lady in the Garden	256	(1)
Rolling Naked in the Morning Dew	257	(2)
Gibbons Ruark
Polio	259	(1)
The Visitor	260	(1)
Lost Letter to James Wright, With Thanks for a Map of Fano	260	(2)
Basil	262	(1)
For a Suicide, a Little Early Morning Music	262	(2)
Postscript to an Elegy	264	(1)
A Vacant Lot	264	(2)
Larry Rubin
The Manual	266	(1)
The Brother-in-Law	267	(1)
Dinner at the Mongoloid's	267	(1)
James Seay
It All Comes Together Outside the Restroom in Hogansville	268	(1)
When Our Voices Broke Off	269	(2)
Clouds over Islands	271	(1)
Charlie Smith
Heads of Fire	272	(2)
After the Game	274	(1)
My Parents' Wedding	275	(1)
The Palms	276	(1)
Dave Smith
The Roundhouse Voices	277	(3)
Sailing the Back River	280	(1)
Rain Forest	281	(1)
An Antipastoral Memory of One Summer	282	(1)
Descending	283	(1)
Making a Statement	284	(1)
A. E. Stallings
Watching the News After the Tornados	285	(1)
A Lament for the Dead Pets of Our Childhood	286	(1)
A Postcard from Greece	287	(1)
Frank Stanford
Inventory	288	(2)
Death and Memory	290	(1)
Between Love and Death	291	(1)
Island Funeral	292	(1)
Allegory of Death and Night	292	(1)
The Light the Dead See	293	(2)
Leon Stokesbury
Evening's End	295	(4)
To Laura Phelan: 1880--1906	299	(1)
Day Begins at Governor's Square Mall	300	(2)
Senor Wences and the Man in the Box	302	(2)
John Stone
The Girl in the Hall	304	(1)
Death	305	(1)
After Love	306	(1)
Early Sunday Morning	306	(2)
Henry Taylor
Taking to the Woods	308	(3)
The Way It Sometimes Is	311	(1)
At the Grave of E. A. Robinson	312	(1)
As on a Darkling Plain	312	(1)
At the Swings	313	(2)
In Memory of Brother Dave Gardner	315	(1)
Richard Tillinghast
Rain	316	(1)
We Kept Missing Each Other	317	(2)
Convergence	319	(1)
Envoi	320	(1)
Ellen Bryant Voigt
Farm Wife	321	(1)
Jug Brook	322	(1)
Daughter	323	(1)
Sweet Everlasting	323	(1)
Landscape, Dense with Trees	324	(1)
The Lotus Flowers	325	(2)
The Farmer	327	(1)
The Last Class	328	(2)
Alice Walker
My Husband Says	330	(1)
Your Soul Shines	331	(1)
Even As I Hold You	332	(1)
Robert Penn Warren
Tell Me a Story	333	(1)
The Spider	334	(1)
Sister Water	335	(1)
Last Laugh	336	(1)
Evening Hour	337	(1)
Heat Lightning	338	(2)
What Voice at Moth-Hour	340	(1)
Heart of Autumn	341	(1)
John Warwick
The Clay Easters	342	(1)
Dr. Ezekiel MacAllister, Missionary to the Heathen, Delivers A Film Lecture at the Sunday Night Service of the First Methodist Church, Selma, Alabama	343	(2)
James Whitehead
A Local Man Goes to the Killing Ground	345	(1)
A Local Man Remembers Betty Fuller	346	(1)
A Local Contractor Flees His Winter Trouble and Saves Some Lives in a Knoxville Motel Room	346	(1)
Long Tour: the Country Music Star Explains Why He Put off the Bus and Fired a Good Lead Guitar in West Texas	347	(1)
A Natural Theology	348	(1)
A Poem for My Humerus	348	(2)
For My Father at Eighty	350	(1)
Miller Williams
The Caterpillar	351	(2)
Why God Permits Evil: For Answers to This Question of Interest to Many Write Bible Answers Dept. E--7	353	(2)
Ruby Tells All	355	(1)
On a Photograph of My Mother at Seventeen	356	(1)
A Poem for Emily	357	(1)
The Aging Actress Sees Herself a Starlet on the Late Show	358	(1)
The Curator	359	(2)
Jonathan Confronts the Question	361	(1)
C. D. Wright
Obedience of the Corpse	362	(1)
Tours	363	(1)
Birth of the Cool	363	(1)
Slag	364	(1)
More Blues and the Abstract Truth	364	(2)
Charles Wright
April	366	(1)
Cloud River	367	(1)
Clear Night	367	(1)
October	368	(1)
Arkansas Traveller	368	(3)
The Other Side of the River	371	(3)
Umbrian Dreams	374	(1)
Index of Titles	375