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Anson County Parkway Publishers From the introduction by Heather Ross Miller: We grow up in the middle of places, barely noticing them. Then Joseph Bathanti comes along and tells us such marvelous stories, such truly exciting stories about them, we feel blessed. He didn’t grow up here, but he sees the place with clear new dimensions. And leads us into these dimensions with excitement. For these are poems of excitement in the best sense, that wonderful sense of looking forward, a sense of adventure. He explores Anson County this way, every poem a new discovery or a reaffirmation of our shared discovery. And as we read, following behind him in these adventures and discoveries, he makes companions of us all. We look up and say, “I know that place. That’s just how it is. That’s just what it does.” The places tumble through the poems: Walltown, Gum Springs, Whortleberry Creek, Willoughby Trestle, White Store, and Mount Zion. The poet makes them exist in strong detail, their sights and their smells. We are fortunate to have these testimonies of Penzoil cans and wild viburnum, where blue herons rise out of mistletoe, and a split hickory smells like frankincense. We are lucky such places, such people, exist.
Reviews “An award-winning poet, Joseph Bathanti was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and now teaches creative writing at Appalachian State University. Anson Country: Poems is his latest anthology and continues to document him as an imaginative master of the prose poem who draws his inspiration from what most of us see without noticing, note without reflection, and accept without further inquiry. 'Drought: The corn chants / to be buried in early August, / It prays the land lie / fallow under merciful heaven. / Even the direst Love / in the burnt cropheart / and the blood of a boy / farmer could not save it. / There is a farmhouse surrounded / by more hell-colored corn / than one can see beyond. / The cows go unfed / on the day of trucks / at the Walltown graveyard.’ Also very highly recommended reading for poetry enthusiasts are Joseph Bathanti's previous three collections: Communion Partners, The Feast Of All Saints, and This Metal."
Links Also by Joseph Bathanti:
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