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The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems
The unfading poetic brilliance of Robert Morgan shines through these ninety-three pieces spanning thirty-five years. Celebrated for his recent fiction, Morgan makes obvious in this volume he was first, and remains foremost, a wordsmith of poetic sensibilities―a craftsman of taut, forceful imagery, alert with wonder to the mystery of what lies in plain sight.
Like Robert Frost, Morgan takes the natural world as a metaphorical base for human projection. Much of his work is a love song to the Appalachian Mountain terrain and a way of life all but his father speaking in tongues; his mother canning peaches; carpentry, farming, the seasons in slow motion, family history, and wind-borne strains of music. He captures the aura around such common objects as resin, cellars, hog-wire fence, the whippoorwill, and crickets. Infusing his poetry with mountain idiom, even when pondering the cosmos beyond, Morgan creates lyrics with a rhythm like rain―“to be rocked to sleep by mountains / equals the rest of heroes.”
Fourteen new poems open the volume, and selections from nine previous collections follow. Robert Morgan’s The Strange Attractor grants readers a generous overview of an important American poet’s work.
Like Robert Frost, Morgan takes the natural world as a metaphorical base for human projection. Much of his work is a love song to the Appalachian Mountain terrain and a way of life all but his father speaking in tongues; his mother canning peaches; carpentry, farming, the seasons in slow motion, family history, and wind-borne strains of music. He captures the aura around such common objects as resin, cellars, hog-wire fence, the whippoorwill, and crickets. Infusing his poetry with mountain idiom, even when pondering the cosmos beyond, Morgan creates lyrics with a rhythm like rain―“to be rocked to sleep by mountains / equals the rest of heroes.”
Fourteen new poems open the volume, and selections from nine previous collections follow. Robert Morgan’s The Strange Attractor grants readers a generous overview of an important American poet’s work.
- GenresPoetry
144 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2004
About the author
Robert Morgan
308 books414 followersRobert Morgan is an American poet, short story writer, and novelist.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 19, 2015
A wonderful collection of poetry with a strangely ugly cover. But let's go straight to the poems. Okay, just one:
Wallowing
When old Nell rolled in the bins
hollowed out of the pasture flats, she
whinnied with the pleasure
as one ripened area of skin after
another whetted the firm ground,
shuddered and twisted to reach
itches on withers and rump.
She seemed more like a snake or worm there
on her back, often pulsing in coital
shiver like an amoeba.
I knew she scrubbed off fly eggs,
dung, dried blood from bites,
in the rasp of sand,
the emery submersion salving
harness galls and currying off sweat,
massaging the soreness of age.
Finding still neglected precincts
she'd press them with a snort to
dry grass at the lip of the wallow,
stoking at frisking hair roots
and getting down into the trough
generate with friction a field of brushed
nerves. She indulged a third of her
hide at once to the bump and tickle,
running with the pasture on her back.
She thrashed the late summer dust
in a whirlpool, then
stood and shook herself of the dry
cloud and, smoking pure and free
as if new-born in the depression,
stepped onto the wide pasture.
Wallowing
When old Nell rolled in the bins
hollowed out of the pasture flats, she
whinnied with the pleasure
as one ripened area of skin after
another whetted the firm ground,
shuddered and twisted to reach
itches on withers and rump.
She seemed more like a snake or worm there
on her back, often pulsing in coital
shiver like an amoeba.
I knew she scrubbed off fly eggs,
dung, dried blood from bites,
in the rasp of sand,
the emery submersion salving
harness galls and currying off sweat,
massaging the soreness of age.
Finding still neglected precincts
she'd press them with a snort to
dry grass at the lip of the wallow,
stoking at frisking hair roots
and getting down into the trough
generate with friction a field of brushed
nerves. She indulged a third of her
hide at once to the bump and tickle,
running with the pasture on her back.
She thrashed the late summer dust
in a whirlpool, then
stood and shook herself of the dry
cloud and, smoking pure and free
as if new-born in the depression,
stepped onto the wide pasture.
April 28, 2016
Favorites:
Under Cover: "Something in the blood says don't violate the poise of wood and wild, don't insult with words this place where every bush may hide an ambush..."
Honey: "If you go near bees every day they will know you... No bee full of sweetness wants to sting."
Under Cover: "Something in the blood says don't violate the poise of wood and wild, don't insult with words this place where every bush may hide an ambush..."
Honey: "If you go near bees every day they will know you... No bee full of sweetness wants to sting."
January 21, 2008
A fascinating book of poetry about life in Appalachia.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews