Analyitics

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Robert Morgan

This fall, the novelist and poet Robert Morgan has two new books: Lions of the West and Terroir.

I first encountered Morgan in 1990, shortly after he had published a slim book of poetry titled Sigodlin.  These are physical, sinuous poems, rooted in the mountains of Morgan's native North Carolina.  Typical subjects include Jugs in the Smokehouse, Baptizing Trough, Rockpile and Deer Stands.

Though his focus was (and perhaps still is) on the textures of the exterior world, while thumbing through my copy this evening, I also found a beautiful poem entitled Stretching.  In it, he writes of how:

               The blood asserts
and purrs, filling out movement in
the sweet mobility of used
muscle, in the savor of being,
and you are more than you remembered
and happy in the dance inside
your skin and soaring into this.

I am glad to see that he has a number of appearances scheduled, mainly throughout North Carolina and Tennessee, but in many other states as well.  If you have a chance, don't miss him.  He is a wonderful reader as well as a writer.

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