• Broadside, Counter Balance Arts

Books

Not many books of poems put you in mind of Robert Penn Warren, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the brainiac whimsy of McSweeney's quarterly at the same time. In his first book, LAWRENCE BOOTH'S BOOK OF VISIONS (Yale University, cloth, $19; paper, $12), Maurice Manning displays not just terrific cunning but terrific aim -- he nails his images the way a restless boy, up in a tree with a slingshot, nails anything sentient that wanders into view.

equal parts carnivorous nightmare, Freudian pastoral, and deep-fired family romance.

In his third collection, Yale Younger Poets prize—winner Manning goes for a new twist on the traditional genre of pastoral poetry: he praises nature, but also engages in a postmodern conversation with a version of a higher power, which he calls "Boss."

Haunting and funny, innovative and heartening, this collection of seventy untitled, unpunctuated poems features a nameless land laborer talking to his creator, whom he calls 'boss.' Not a religious book in the traditional sense, this is rather one of questions, wonder, and, at times, sadness.

• Faculty: Mauricce Manning, Indiana University
• Maurice Manning, All Things Considered, NPR, April 19, 2001
• RADICAL PASTORAL: A CONVERSATION WITH MAURICE MANNING , Lyric Review, November 2006
• Quantum Cowboys and Honky Tonk Heroes: A Conversation with Maurice Manning, Sycamore Review, Summer/Fall 2002 issue, 14.2, Purdue University
• Maurice Manning’s Bedside Table: Books, Music, and Neighbors, The Southeastern Review online