Waking

by Ron Rash

Rooted in places like Watauga County, Goshen Creek, and Dismal Mountain, the poems in Ron Rash’s fourth collection, Waking, electrify dry counties and tobacco fields until they sparkle with the rituals and traditions of Southerners in the stir of their lives.

In his first book of poetry in nearly a decade, Rash leads his readers on a Southern odyssey, full of a terse wit and a sense of the narrative so authentic it will dazzle you. As we wake inside these poems, we see rivers wild with trout, lightning storms, and homemade churches, nailed and leaning against the side of a Tennessee mountain.

A two-time PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist, Rash has been compared to writers like John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy. With his eye for the perfect detail and an ear for regional idiom, Rash furthers his claim as the new torchbearer for literature in the American South.

Here is a book full of sorrow and redemption, sparseness and the beauty of a single, stark detail—the muskellunge at first light, a barn choked with curing tobacco, a porch full of men and the rockers that move them over the same spot until they carve their names into the ground, deeper, even, into the roots where myths start, into the very marrow of the world.

Genres: Poetry, Southern

80 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 26, 2011

About the author

Ron Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Finalist and New York Times bestselling novel, Serena, in addition to three other prizewinning novels, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; three collections of poems; and four collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O.Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.

Reviews

[Stan Lake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been slowly working my way through Ron Rash’s catalogue and I truly hope there’s always one I haven’t read so I’ll have something to look forward to. “Waking” is a collection of his poetry and it’s amazing. I really enjoyed these poems because so many painted beautiful pictures of the natural world. A good deal of these poems hold beauty and tragedy in equal measure and always seem to point back to North Carolina. I feel at home reading these. I especially liked poems like “Satinback” and “Bloodroot” and several others that featured snakes and the complex relationship we have when them in the south. I’ve said it before but Ron Rash can’t miss. I really enjoyed this collection. As cliche as it sounds, this book feels like in a small way if the poetry of Robert Frost were set in Western NC and traded birches for tobacco fields. I highly recommend this one.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not know Ron Rash was a poet until I discovered this book. I am familiar with his novels, particularly the amazing Serena, and short stories, which are distinctly Southern, often focusing on those who work hard yet seem to get pulled down further. His poetry is similar and very much the poetry of a storyteller with particular real locations and characters. There are beautiful moments here and I want to read more of this poet's work.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of tight, lyrical poems. Attention to sound, image, emotion and moments of intensity. Love the use of compound words (like Heaney). Bookmarked at least a dozen of these, seem to add one more each reading.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was eager to read this most recent (2011) book of collected poetry by Ron Rash after reading his first three poetry offerings in recent weeks. Rash started with poetry and reviewers of his more recent novels note that as they praise his poetic use of words in his prose work. He is rapidly becoming more than a well known and well respected regional writer in the southern and Appalachian areas. His recent bestseller Serena and his short story collections have moved him into the national scene. Many of the poems in Waking have been previously published in magazines and journals.

Ron Rash promises us a slower pace in this book.

Resolution
The serge and clatter of whitewater conceals
how shallow underneath is, how quickly gone.
Leave that noise behind. Come here
where the water is slow, and clear.
Watch the crawfish prance across the sand,
the mica flash, the sculpen blend with stone.
It’s all beyond your reach though it appears
as near and known as your outstretched hand.

"sculpen" – does anybody know what this word means? I cannot unravel it even with the help of Google and I thought that Google knew everything! Is it an archaic word or just a typo?

A short book of many short poems should be quick to read, right? No, not so! First the type is too small in this small book for my older eyes, Mr. Rash. That is one thing that slows me down. But, it is necessary to read almost every poem more than once and, if it is really short, maybe more than twice! And then to plan to go back to it at another time – maybe in just a minute or maybe tomorrow. This is what slows me down, Mr. Rash. But I am not complaining. Well, maybe a little bit about the size of the type. (But I found a brighter bulb helped there!)

This is the fourth book of poetry by Ron Rash that I have read in April. And I have been reading some of his prose as well. I cannot escape from him this month but it is almost May so I will end my April reading of Ron Rash and, I guess, begin my May reading. I have a couple of his books to go and then I understand that he has a new book of short stories coming out in the Fall. Thank you, Mr. Rash, for taking good care of me this year!

He has poured his life and his ancestor’s lives into his work so that we will remember the past that has led us into the present. What does this man of the past think about the future?

Ron Rash does sometimes seems fixed on gloom and death. But that makes his flashes so much the better. Like this one:

Woman Among Lightning: Catawba County Fair, 1962
Tendrils of neon sprouting
sudden as kudzu across
seven acres of sawdust,
in the middle of a great wheel
dredging buckets of darkness
out of the sky, and this night
wind flapping tents, underneath
of clouds glowing like blown coals,
thundering their heavy freight
toward the fairground as riders
disembark early, but she
refuses, so rides into
the storm, hand reaching as if
trying to pull lightning-wreaths
around her head – a farmwife
leaving the ground where her days
are measured in rows, the hoe
swinging like a metronome
while life leaks away like blood
on land always wanting more,
wanting more, free of it now
as the hawk she saw at dawn,
wings embracing an updraft,
how it hovered that moment
above the fields and fence wire,
as she does now at the pause
between ascent and return,
far from earth as a fistful
of hard-earned quarters can take her.

Ron Rash is maybe reaching for a wider audience with his more recent poetry, it. It seems more accessible than some of his earlier work but that may only be a seeming so to me as I am getting more accustomed to his verse and his subjects. He does cover some familiar territory in this book. He is a young poet in his way, now only in his early 60s and will, I hope, keep on with the poetry even as his prose achieves greater popularity. I have loved getting to know Ron Rash’s poetry in the past month. It has been a special experience. He is like a pair of newly broken in leather shoes: comfortable but with still some of the new sheen.

This collection of poetry arranged in the common five Rash segments is an easy four stars that invites random rereading at quiet moments. One day - maybe soon - I will have my selection of favorite Ron Rash poems.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waking by Ron Rash — a collection of poems broken up into five parts — and the cover’s barren landscape with its snowed in vehicle is a perfect depiction of the run down landscape presented in the first selection of poems. From “Woodshed in Watauga County” (page 7) “as mud daubers and dust motes/drifted above like moments/unmoored from time, and the world/” and from “Junk Car in Snow” (page 8), “No shade tree surgery could/revive its engine, so rolled/into the pasture, left stalled/among cattle, soon rust-scabs/” Rash does desolation and emptiness well, but he also just as easily paints vivid imagery reminiscent of lucid dreams and the lingering impression of those dreams during the stages of waking. In “Milking Traces” (page 5), “those narrow levels seemed like/belts worn on the hill’s bulged waist,/if climbed straight up, tall steps for/stone Aztec ruins–though razed/”

Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/10/w...

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book of poems because I was taken by Rash’s rich use of language in his novel, Serena. He uses his powers of observation, knowledge of Appalachia, his culture and people, and concise word choice to full advantage. Many of the poems are snapshots or paintings in words in which little happens: the sort of poems I’m not usually fond of, but I give his 5 stars. Others are full of action, violence, and its aftermath, some about the Civil War. I’ll be going back to read them all again.

[Laura Heller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most poems in this collection I enjoyed, especially having lived in Appalachia and loving the wildness of the mountains. I liked the specific details of nature, and rural people working, and life and death cradled in nature and shadows of home. However, section IV seemed slightly out of place among the other poems, but nonetheless a great contribution. These are poems for feeling deeply the land and people in the mountains.

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ron Rash continues to write evocative, earthy poetry rooted strongly in his sense of place. I especially loved the poem that inspired to the cover art.

Popsugar Reading Challenge Categories:

Under 150 pages
Finished in a day
Recommended by a family member
Poetry
Borrowed from library

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you don't like poetry, I think you'll love this book. Little gems of stories packed into poems, they bring to life people of the Southern Appalachians and many other places. I'm particularly fond of the first three sections.

[Will White · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first book of poetry I've reviewed and it fell short for me. Maybe the familiarity I have with the area actually took away from the impact. I do enjoy Ron Rash's other books and would recommend them all. I'll keep Waking on nightstand to see if I can better relate after a couple of reads.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was surprised by how uninspired I was with this collection. For something with such a heavy focus on the beauty of the natural world and the rich but simple traditions of Southern Appalachia, this felt mighty forced and stuffy to me.

[Robert Arndt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good NC mountain poetry that makes good use of the people and landscape.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read casually, now seriously. Superb

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Ron Rash to read and I liked it. I KNOW these places that he speaks of, the images spring up inside of me like home!

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful little gems of poems, the best are stories or the basis for stories

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sebbene alcuni poemi mi siano rimasti comunque oscuri fino alla fine, questa raccolta di poesie è stata più comprensibile di quella precedente.

Alcuni poemi sono sempre immersi nella natura, ma stavolta siamo nella Carolina del Nord: storie di allevatori, agricoltori e pescatori alle prese con difficili raccolti, dalla siccità estiva alle pesanti nevicate invernali fino all'espediente della coltivazione del tabacco con la speranza di arricchirsi, finendo invece per accumulare debiti su debiti.

Ci sono stati un paio di riferimenti alla vita sotto la superficie del lago che ritengo possano riferirsi a quanto letto in Raising the Dead, ma Waking punta l'occhio su Watauga County e su Madison County - quest'ultima teatro particolarmente sanguinario di alcuni episodi brutali avvenuti durante la Guerra Civile americana come il massacro di Shelton Laurel, citato e in parte protagonista anche nel suo romanzo The World Made Straight (che devo ancora leggere).

Ron Rash è un autore che si immerge profondamente nella natura e nelle montagne della Carolina ed è anche un profondo conoscitore della sua storia, motivo per il quale è difficile - per chi non è americano - cogliere e capire tutto ciò a cui fa riferimento.
Ciò nonostante, anche quando non compresi appieno, passaggi dei suoi poemi sanno davvero cogliere nel segno e nell'anima del lettore.

[Michael Brantley · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. A must for any Rash fan, and some of the poems seem to allude to characters from his novels.

[Michele B · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't do poetry.

[Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful collection of poetry. As another critic pointed out, Rash has such a gift for rendering a place.