Tamp

by Denton Loving

"East Tennessee poet Denton Loving's second collection centers on the bond that endures between father and son, even after death. In plainspoken poetry that is often narrative in form, the writer's personal experiences living on an inherited cattle farm and tending to an aging orchard are detailed. Loving explores and celebrates the physical and psychological landscapes of his native Appalachia--its mountains and valleys, its flora and fauna--with language that is lyrical and bursting with sudden shocks of emotional power. These are poems that serve as witness to the natural world, blurred with history and mythology to examine the eternal father-son paradigm. Readers will be reminded why Ron Rash has said that "Denton Loving has the talent to convey what he has seen that we too might see, and feel, and know deeply.""--

Genres: Poetry, Southern

70 pages, Paperback

Published April 4, 2023

About the author

Denton Loving lives on a farm near the historic Cumberland Gap, where Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia come together. He is the author of three poetry collections: Feller, Crimes Against Birds, and Tamp which was a finalist for the Weatherford Award and recipient of the inaugural Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. He is also the editor of Seeking Its Own Level: an anthology of writings about water. He has received scholarships and fellowships from organizations such as the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, the Eckerd College Writers Conference, and the Key West Literary Seminars. He earned the Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Literature from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. His fiction, poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The Kenyon Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Iron Horse Literary Review and Ecotone.

Reviews

[Shawna Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rare trove of honest, measured assurance...a blessed reminder of what matters most. I read this book last year, too, but wanted to reread, and loved it even more the second time, which I wouldn't have thought possible. It's a perfect read for anyone who's grieving the loss of a loved one in perpetuity. Loving gets the burden of that grief exactly right.

[Davin Malasarn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and emotional collection. You get a deep understanding of Loving's connection to nature and his family through writing that is translucent and tender.

[Wes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impeccable. Moving. Engrossing.

[Rita Quillen]

This book felt like home to me; it's an echo of my own life in recent years, as Loving's thoughtful, deep accounts of the terrible grief of his father's passing weaves into the work of fence-building, tending cows, planting and caregiving. These are very wise and beautiful poems by a remarkable soul, a person of substance, who lives and writes poetry for all the right reasons. Highly recommend.

[Bobby Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent Appalachian poet who captures both the mundane of daily life and the easily overlooked profound pieces of the universe that make us what we are. Both wonderfully connected to nature and to family, two things that define our region, the collection will leave you perhaps nostalgic, but definitely more appreciative for having lived.

[Amie Whittemore · Rating 4 out of 5]

TAMP is a truly lovely collection of carefully wrought poems that explore the grief of losing a beloved parent and trying to make sense of life after that loss. These poems are tender, rooted in nature, particularly in Loving's Appalachia. If you want poems that feel quiet and grounded and farseeing, this book is for you.

[Meredith Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Denton Loving is a widely respected poet from the Cumberland Gap region where Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia meet. He lives on a farm, and his poems touch gracefully on the natural world: "Needleless, the beetle-eaten pine stood/through its last snow but fell in seedtime winds" ("Spring Signs"). His trees and animals, however, form the context for his people.

Who work. I love how many of his poems are about chores and jobs and the machines people use to do the jobs and chores. One poem is called "Riding the Lawn Mower," and is about the narrator's trials with getting his mower repaired: "After the first small-engine repairman/tells me five miles is too far for a house call..."). Then, like Christ at Gethsemane, he wants to be relieved of the burden of taking the engine apart himself, as his father taught him to do, but in the end, "...I crawl onto summer-warm grass/like my father taught me. I pull/S-pins and retaining springs, freeing/suspension arms and the ant-sway bar...."
The father is the subject of probably half or more of the poems–poems of mourning and memory. The wonderful "The Fence Builder" has the narrator interacting with the grave digger for his father's grave. "My graves don't rise or sink," says the grave digger, and the narrator, in his own work, taps and tamps the clay and levels the damp ground, just as "...the man in the casket//taught me to tamp around wooden posts,/to make a new fence last."
Loving also moves far from home: there are poems about dreams and ancient Egypt, and Henry Adams. It is a deeply satisfying collection with a low-key but absolute seriousness as Loving explores life as he is experiencing it. I don't think I have ever read poems that appear to claim so little yet accomplish and move us so much with their perfect alignment of word-to-subject

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poetry collection from Denton Loving is an absolute stunner. I will be revisiting these time and time again, dipping in and out for the moments of awe in here, of which there are many.

There’s a phenomenal scope between these pages—you see the details on the underside of a cow, a hummingbird’s throat, or the “soft daggers of falling petals” and then zoom out all the way to the stars and humanity at large. It’s brilliant in that these poems show how you can be rooted to one specific place, like in this case East Tennessee / Appalachia / a specific orchard or a barn, and are yet connected to a global whole as these poems draw inspiration and/or make references to Shakespeare, Japanese poetry structures, or memorial statues in Prague (LOVED the poem Genealogy which showed this connectedness idea perfectly and that I’m having a hard time explaining).

The beauty of loss permeates throughout the collection be it animals considering oblivion or ‘tamping’ the earth above your father’s grave or encountering his gloves after he has passed, “cupping air / as if he’ll return when he finds his hammer.”

This collection is SO BEAUTIFUL – I couldn’t get enough. Already rereading them all.

[Natalie S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pick at least one book of poetry to read per year - largely because while I find I like poetry when I read a good collection of it (Smith' Life on Mars, Schree's Mistress, and anything by Don West come to mind), I have so much fiction and history in my to-read pile that if I don't make time for it, I will sadly forgo the genre. Tamp was my pick for this year, not only because it deals with themes geographically close to home, but because I grew to know Denton Loving during my time at LMU. Committed to Appalachian literature and a founder of the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival, I was excited to read his work.

The best works of poetry make one feel like one has seen something that one should not have: the deepest piece of the soul. That's what Loving's work does in this collection. I could feel the car ride bumping along the road, the smell of the barn in my nostrils, and the feel of farm tools in my hands. More importantly, though, I could feel the love for a father and the chasm that is created when someone one loves is no longer there to ground us. It's a collection that my mind will linger on, and I will return to it in the future.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Loving’s second collection of poetry, the poet explores the vast territory of grief following the death of his father, surveying the “topography of tears” with exquisite awareness of his place in the family of things.

“I wish I’d understood then that we cry every time we blink, every moment of our lives; it’s the first act we perform when we’re born. As a species, humans had the ability to cry before we developed language skills. What better proof is there of the infinite sadness of the human condition?” —from “Topography of Tears” (p. 57)

Favorite Poems:
“Hurtling”
“Genealogy”
“The Fence Builder”
“There is a barn”
“Cows Don’t Consider Oblivion”
“Hag Stone, Hex Stone, Holy Stone”
“After My Father Died, I Marveled”
“The Mystery of the Hereafter”
“Remember My Name”
“Play Where I’m Cast a Sycorax”
“On the Other Side of Wilderness”
“If there’s an Angel of lost gloves”
“We Are Called to Reinvent Ourselves”
“Learning to Drive”
“The Abacist”
“Whatever Frame It Pleases”
“Fishing with the Saint”
“Copperhead”
“Purification”
“South Through Kentucky”
“The Topography of Tears”

[Keith Pilapil Lesmeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exquisitely rendered collection of poems tuned to what Amy Hempel calls "the language of grief," as the author explores and recalls a world both with and without his father. Perhaps, however, it's the unexpected humor in these poems that caught me off guard. In a poem about his father, the poet writes, "He wasn't careless,/though I never knew him to lay hands/on the tool he needed when he needed it." In another poem, "Dad confessed to be a hillbilly only in one way--/he collected more cars than we could drive--" The collection, in other words, explores a range of human emotion. Loving's poems, as Major Jackson observed, "remind us that to grieve is to love..." Jackson also notes that Loving is "...deeply attuned to the richness of a rural sacred order."

[David Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

My collection of poetry books is growing, though I remain the world’s worst reader of the stuff. I rush headlong instead of lingering—what was that I just read? But I’m learning, thanks to poets like Denton Loving. Or maybe I’m as dense as ever but Loving’s poetry is that good. “Tamp” (Mercer University Press, 2023) is a deep, lyrical, and yet plainspoken meditation on grief, following his father’s death. Yes, grief. Poetry’s familiar stomping grounds. But these are poems filled with life, not death; memories, not scars. And whether he’s writing about sunlight as it “romances its way through the tree canopy,” or simply stating “My dad was a devil with a chainsaw,” Loving is there with the reader, every step. Highly recommended.

[Joseph Zaccardi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of Denton Loving’s book is perfect but what I love the most are the poems and his language. Such simple language expressing such complex thoughts. Many of the lines force me to underline them as they are so strong. "My father’s soul weighed less than feather," and, “I mechanic my way beyond my skill set / until the mulching deck falls limp.”
So many of Denton’s poems touched my heart, for instance, “The Sherpa Jacket,” and “Remembered by Name,” are just a few, the latter poem brought tears to my eyes There is a spirituality to his poems and a sense of an understanding of the universe and an underlying peace and calm.
–Joseph Zaccardi

[Joanne Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tamp. Such a small, innocent sounding word. It hardly seems possible these four letters could hold all the power and emotion found in Denton Loving’s most recent book of poetry. And yet, and yet, the title is perfect. These poems, filled with sharp details of surprise, settle down deep into the reader. Denton Loving’s power as a storyteller—his keen observations of home, land, and grief—weave a narrative with deep roots. Don’t bother putting Tamp on a shelf after reading the final poem. You’ll reach for these pages time and time again.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I began reading Tamp, I expected a journey through the poet’s personal stages of loss. However, Loving makes his experience universal by weaving nature, dreams, and the past through it. Several poems had an impact on me, but one of my favorites was “Genealogy,” which is like a shared regional family tree. It traces the “the son of a coal miner” to “the child of the mountains” and backwards to the beginning of time. I highly recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys poems that become richer with meaning each time they are revisited.

[Kenny Culbertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Denton Loving gently reveals to the reader in Tamp truth that is deeply buried within the soul to be uncovered.

Inspiring, gracious and comfortable, Loving’s work weaves his words one by one into the reader’s mind in a most unique way.

Exhilarating and refreshing, Tamp, is a must read and will leave the reader with an until next time feeling after each contemplation.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loving's art captures the Appalachian spirit of pride in one's work - in working the land - the earth - the dust of the earth. The poet digs into the soil of familial relationships, growth, and loss. Loving mines the depth of emotions in his exploration of Appalachian culture. Tamp must be revisited often as layers of meaning emerge with each reading.

[Judith Turner-Yamamoto · Rating 5 out of 5]

TAMP, Tennessee poet Denton Loving's new poetry collection, centers on the bond that endure, even after death. In straightforward phrasing, Loving shares personal experiences that evoke the universal and conveys the world of his native Appalachia—its physical and psychological mountains and valleys. Deceptively transportive and accessible.

[Donna M. Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Denton Loving has provided a spiritual balm in these poems, reaching into the soul’s most sacred moments. On every page a small miracle.

[Katie Bowers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loving's collection is magnificent. Each poem is paced and formed perfectly--moving slowly and then all at once, like the an unfurling of a bloom you've long waited for.

[Kurtie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Narrative poems. Loving looks back. Reflections on life, on death, father and son.