The Common Man

by Maurice Manning

The Common Man , Maurice Manning’s fourth collection, is a series of ballad-like narratives, set down in loose, unrhymed iambic tetrameter, that honors the strange beauty of the Kentucky mountain country he knew as a child, as well as the idiosyncratic adventures and personalities of the oldtimers who were his neighbors, friends, and family. Playing off the book’s title, Manning demonstrates that no one is common or simple. Instead, he creates a detailed, complex, and poignant portrait—by turns serious and hilarious, philosophical and speculative, but ultimately tragic—of a fast-disappearing aspect of American culture. The Common Man ’s accessibility and its enthusiastic and sincere charms make it the perfect antidote to the glib ironies that characterize much contemporary American verse. It will also help to strengthen Manning’s reputation as one of his generation’s most important and original voices.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

MAURICE MANNING, the author of four collections of poetry, was awarded the 2009 Hanes Poetry Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His first book, Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions, was selected by W. S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Manning, a former writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, teaches at Indiana University and Warren Wilson College.

Reviews

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reread.

This is poetry in couplets and in the colloquial language of eastern Kentucky's hill country. These are beautifully rendered poems portraying the people of the region, their stories, and what makes up their lives. Sometimes touching, sometimes gritty, sometimes funny, they all speak a truth we can relate to.

This morning, I took my pocketknife
and ate a turnip like an apple,

as raw as love, and right out of the ground.
It doesn't get more commonplace

than that, the dirt and bitterness
undone by a single purple curl

from the blade I sharpen Sunday nights
to keep it ready for the week.

Then I watched the horse's withers bristle;
I saw the finger of the branch

reach out to find the wind; I heard
the bird who never lets me see her--

she was telling me hello, and all
I did was whistle back, like that--

my dog ran circles around it all,
the briars bounced with joy as he weaved

his song and being through them.

Just a sample, a fragment. It alone is worthy of the 5 stars, and more.

Reread 22 May 16.

[Charlie L · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I first read this book's first few poems, I thought, there's no way this could live up in any way to that fall or spring day--some time a little chilly, with a little rain--when Maurice Manning read his poems to a group of people in Southern Illinois, including myself, and later went on to drink with us into the night, where he took out his guitar and I took out my ukulele and some other friends played their instruments. It just couldn't possibly live up to that.

Then I read a dirty limerick:

Let's see, he said,

and drew a breath: I went downstairs
to fetch a little cider and there

set a bedbug a-jackin' off
a spider, so I went back up

to fetch a little gin and the son
of a bitch was a-doin' it again! (33)

And I thought, hmm, that's the Maurice Manning I remember: a natural storyteller. Maybe it took me thirty-odd pages to get into the book, but I think it more likely that it takes the book a while to get going. The first few poems seem awfully poetic, when Manning simply does stories best--the kinds of sentences that roll off the tongue smooth, like "A Ringer Washer on the Porch"; "That Durned Ole Via Negativa"; where he tells you straight-out, "You can't say naw / without the trickle of a smile. / The eggheads call that wistful, now - / O sad desire, O boiling pot / of melancholy pitch!" (47); or the first real sad poem, the "Old Negro Spiritual."

The book keeps on going until the end, getting better and better, and even though it can't live up to that night playing my ukulele with friends and with a little alcohol, especially while reading it this night, a night when it's been over a year since I've really played my ukulele--played it with other people--but the whole thing evokes that fine evening, and that's not just nostalgia.

The book evokes nice evenings past because of something I should've realized from the start: Manning is an oblate, even if he doesn't know it; he's a person devoted to the religious life. The book talks about sin a few times, but that's not what I mean so much. I mean it in the sense that meditation is religion, and the result of that religion is knowing the world in the way that Manning does.

And some nice evenings in our past are worth remembering in just the way that he might. The way he talks about being is an admirable way to be. And the way he talks about being is best shown in the title poem, "The Common Man," which closes the book:

I know to find the yellow bar

of moonlight pouring like a soul
from the gap between two shrunken boards

of the barn, a soul beyond the body
and not inside it. Part of me

resides out there, and part of you
is out there, too. Let's hope we've got

that much in common, a fair amount
if you think about it very long. (93-94)

[A.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maurice Manning's The Common Man was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer prize for poetry. Pulitzers for poetry are given to a "distinguished volume of original verse by an American poet," and I can see why Manning was considered. Born and raised in Kentucky, his poems read more like ballads or narrative tales from life in his hometown.

Each poem in the entire collection is formatted into two-line stanzas that celebrate memories, characters, tall-tales and the Kentucky landscape and culture. Some are funny, some are introspective and many are even spiritual in nature.

Here is one of my favorites:

DEAD TREE, TWO CROWS, MORNING FOG

It's a hickory, the headless tree,
a pair of shaggy arms still raised

above the cedars circling
its waist. A drowsy, ragged throng

has gathered while the fog burns off.
Those arms look hoisted up and cinched

to stay in place forever, to say,
I am surrendering. Around

these parts it makes a graven image.
I know you're thinking now about

this tree, and maybe you're thinking why
is this man so bent on darkness? Well,

I'm not so bent. I like the tree,
and soon enough the sun will shine

it up and make it look more friendly.
Sometimes a tree looks like a sign

of something else, and that's all I'm saying.
Besides, I didn't make the world

the way it is, so black and white
sometimes it's blinding. You'd think the fog

would want to cover up the tree,
but this morning it looked like a lifted veil.

Let's face it, in the world we know
we want what's hidden to pack more punch

than what's revealed - there's more than meets
the eye. I like that proverb, too,

but revelation damns the eye
or dooms it to admit. I see it. Now,

what is it? I told you what it is,
this time, a tree - that looks like a man

tied up, who's bowed his head. And so,
the pair of crows I've noted. When crows

close their eyes, do you know what they see?
A tree, they have a mind for the mind

of a tree. How very pantheistic!
I suppose it is, but can you think

of anything more true than the God
who goes on living in a tree?

A mercy branches out to find
whatever needs it, to make the thing

that needed mercy merciful -
the fog into the tree, the tree

unto the crows, the crows unto
the part I'm going to tell you next.

If you've ever tried to mock a crow,
you know it ain't gonna happen, which makes

its foolery less foolish. One
lit out and landed on a horse.

The horse was almost white. You think
I had a say in what I saw?

The horse was happy to receive
the crow - that graven thing was over.

And by the way, it wasn't me
who put the echo in the woods

when the second crow forsook the tree
for another farther in the fog.

[Carrie Mullins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is perfect to read out loud from the backseat to your mom and sister in the front seat on a road trip to Indiana. For real.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Described as a “book-length poem,” this volume feels like the lyrical epilogue of the Southern Appalachian Foxfire movement of the 1970s. Poetry should be read aloud, and this book begs to be. The reader/listener is treated to lines like, “You reckon I could ever run out/of stories in my heart to tell?” I will forever think of poetry as “stories in my heart” on account of that line. Or how about, “That’s/ a big’un, I said, and he said, Yep./ And there it was, a nip of Yep/ to bring me back to the wondrous world….” Sadness, strangeness, and humor comingle in every poem. The imagery is stark and even shocking but also speaks to such tenderness at times that I audibly gasped while reading. Highly recommend this collection for anyone seeking a salve against the sting of “hillbilly” elegies and other imprecise and hurtful portraits of the Appalachian culture and people.

[Scott Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maurice Manning is a superbly talented poet, deeply grounded in English and world literature, in religion and philosophy, and in the culture of Appalachia. Although each of his collections of poems is distinct in form and focus, they all reflect a deep sympathy for lives rooted in place, a regard for human dignity regardless of class or race, a deft handling of vernacular language, and a sly humor. He's marvelous. If you don't know his work, The Common Man would be a good place to start. I also highly recommend One Man's Dark, The Gone and the Going Away, and Bucolics.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to hear Maurice Manning's keynote speech at Berea College. He was incredible. So, of course I had to read more of his work. The common man strikes gold on a particular dialect and the use of rare but spot-on phrases that reflects his upbringing. The poems are at different times funny, sad, thoughtful, and beautiful.

This book of poems is an enjoyable, as quick as you like, read.

[Ken]

My Old Kentucky home goes poetica as Maurice Manning revisits the tall tales of his youth in a series of unrhymed tetrameter poems celebrating a place, a time, and some very interesting folks. If you like Southern literature and vernacular in your tea, look it up!

[Booker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection blending folklore, dialect and yet complicated word choice and ideas into a fine collection. These beg to be read aloud to cause friends and loved ones to laugh, to cry, or to reflect.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manning captures the dialogue of a particular breed of Southern storyteller in these beautiful stories masquerading as poetry.

[Michael Gossett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll keep reading whatever Maurice Manning keeps writing; I think he's on to something in a really clever and important way.

[Alli · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful set of colloquial and poignant poems. I found myself chuckling aloud and taking a deep breath to steady my nerves on more than one occasion.

[Tonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being from the country I could really relate to the references he was making. I do not know tha someone raised in the city would get this. Although that does not mean that you would not enjoy it.

[Jenny Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Common Man" is southern storytelling in the prose of loose-lipped poetry with a strong undercurrent of religion, and of course, hillbilly. Wonderful set of poems to have.

[Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maurice Manning is one of my favorite living poets. Every poem is a moment of wonderful anticipation for me.

[Sylvia Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Common Man, by Maurice Manning, is a book you have to read with people you know. Another pair of eyes helps with thick symbolism, and another smile makes a nice poem nicer. I enjoyed almost all of the poems in this book, and I would recommend it to other people.

In most poems, Manning’s language looks deceptively common. He writes in a way that sounds like a ramble, as if the poet is speaking directly to the reader. He tells stories about people who are “ordinary:” ironically, the stories are as un-ordinary as they come. Here’s an example from the poem “For the Last Time, No, I’m Not the Rabbit Man.”

“… Why, he’s got
More rabbits than sense, and they’ve all got names
From the books of the Good Book and because
There’s more rabbits than books he’s doubled up,
So there’s a fat rabbit he calls
Ecclesiastes the Second, and such
as that.” (3-9)

This story is great. I myself have never known a man with 67+ rabbits, which is probably the reason the poet decided to tell me about one. Manning’s skillful writing and broad imagination has filled the book with stories like these: stories that are simply entertaining.

Don’t let the rambling or the humor fool you. The poems are also full of unexpected depth. In another poem, titled “The Old Clodhopper’s Aubade,” the poet describes a girl he thinks is amazing, comparing her eyes to bluebirds, and lamenting the lonely shadow he keeps in his head. But the poet, by mistake, has gotten her eye color wrong.

“Yore nature’s strange, she said, and sighed.
Besides my eyes ain’t blue, they’re green.
With that, she closed them tight, her eyes,
and the sun-ball hung his hat behind
the sky. The happiness I’d known
so little of had left a mark
to let me know I knew it less,
and, by God, that turned my nature dark.” (33-40)

It’s an amusing predicament, and at the same time, it’s a reflection on self-centeredness. As soon as the poet’s love contradicts his fantasies, the sun seems to disappear behind the clouds. The last sentence, which is more poetic than any previous praise of bluebird eyes, talks about how much his ignorance of his proclaimed source of happiness has struck him.

It is good to mention, lastly, that the book includes plenty of mature themes. The story in “Ars Poetica Shaggy and Brown,” for example, talks about a suicide. Another example is the poem “Hey, Sidewinder,” which tells the story of a man who discovers his wife was cheating. By killing the man, he drew the wrath of the man’s brothers, so he leaves his wife tied naked to a bedpost and escapes town dressed like a woman. Such scenes are never written in a graphic or demeaning way.

[Zoe Kaylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got to talk with Maurice Manning recently for work, and he is such a thoughtful, kinda lover of nature and people that that inspired me to check out some of his poetry, despite often having a hard time connecting to poetry. I have to say, I’m a big fan of his language and storytelling. He really makes each of the poems in this collection a story that revolve around familiar themes to those who are familiar with Kentucky and Appalachia. I really enjoyed reading this, and the poems draw you in and it’s very hard not to finish the collection in one sitting. This one is all that my library has on ebook, but I’m definitely going to be reading more of Manning’s poetry!

[David Higdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second of two books of poetry I’ve read by Maurice Manning (the first being Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions), this collection of Appalachian lore and life as lyrical pomes composed completely of couplets is an outstanding example of regional poetry. I want to continue to explore his other works. Recommended.

[Nita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Manning's word images. I can relate to them and I can just hear this being read in my head which to me is the sign of good poetry. And one of my favorite lines from Oh, She's Warm: "Since then, I've got a little saying:/you never know when you'll need a biscuit."

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A man who knows the shadows knows
his way around the sunshine, too."

[Cora · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars!

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading and writing poetry for a long time, and the more I write, the more I wonder about the "rules." I wonder why the writers spend so much time rearranging prose into poetry. I wonder about line breaks, and rhythm, compression, and all the rest. I wonder about the old coots in colleges who haven't read a poem of value since the 1950's, or before. Then I start writing and quit wondering because I know what I'm after. Or I start reading, and try to be patient enough to find what I'm after. I'm not as sensitive as Emily Dickinson, so poems don't take the top of my head off, but a good poem will stop my breath, and a really good poem alters my heart beat. Forms and rules fall away to the revealed truth.

In this collection, "The Common Man," Maurice Manning has found a form and a vernacular that reveals the truth behind, and with his Appalachian characters. It's a milieu that could be easy stereotyped, or mocked, but Mr. Manning does neither, and though he may get a little too close to romanticizing the poor and uneducated, the poems contain enough native wit to keep them on track. There are poems in this collection that caught my breath, there are two or three that gave my heart a jolt. There's one, A Wavering Spindle of Forsythia, that took me out of body, back to my Pennsylvania boyhood, and that I wish I had written.

The Common Man gets four stars, verging on five. Highly recommended!

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The speaker(s) of these poems sets to tellin' a joke, or else a tall tale,
but each anecdote slants
as if corn-cob pipe deflected
tellin'.


Whether he's on about a high strung woman
caught by her apron strings
in a wringer washer,

or a man requestin' to be buried "nekkid"
in the undertaker's box,

or else a girl settlin' into tire swing
after Sunday sermon only to find
said swing occupied, her brother,
then, choppin' copperhead to Kingdom
gone,

Maurice Manning's storytellin'
winds like pipe smoke
or else a chuckle
from someplace deep
as shadow in mountain country.

I'd previously read his _A Companion for Owls_, but am now looking forward to trackin' down his earlier book: _Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions_.

[Brian Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of poems. Re-reading them brought out even more smiles this time. If you haven't read him, do it soon. He's breaking ground each time a new chapbook is released.

[Christopher McCaffery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some poems are stand-outs; many blend into each other; nothing much truly objectionable surrounding the gems. The diner food of poetry.

[Sherry Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review

[Irisis Miranda Wolfe]

This was both sad and beautiful in a way. The last poem was as near to perfection as you're going to get.