Mississippi Vistas
Volume One of A Mississippi Trilogy
Hardback and Paperback: 91 pp.
Published: 1990
Price: $18.95, $12.50
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As the first book of a complete cycle tracing one man's relationship with the South, volume one of this trilogy begins with the images captured by an enthusiastic, idealistic Northern outlander during his treks to the region immortalized by Faulkner — Oxford, Mississippi.
Praise:
Mississippi Vistas is a remarkably effective book. You and F.[aulkner] and Mississippi are there, and that relationship is, of course, the single, demanding subject. The book works. The poetic tone is right for the occasion, the sense of the occasion demanding the man's attention is accurately there. I want to say that the first three poems are extremely effective in giving a deep sense of the traveler and his mission. . . .
A unique book, which I am grateful for in all senses.
— Robert Penn Warren, America's first poet laureate
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Time's Harvest
Whining combines, grinding in tandem,
Have pillaged the fields,
Wrested their precious golden pleasures
Before setting dust adrift,
And left, in their wake, stubbly specters,
Vaporous surrogates,
Crones, and moaning widows
Praying for November winds
To redeem them from barrenness and old age,
By assimilating their stray seeds.
The land recoils, in shame, from its desuetude.
Now, across the broad Delta and as deep,
A ubiquitous haze
Of smoldering, black shrouds
Rises above flames
Articulating shrill, crying voices.
Soon, no trace of harvest
Will mar the terrain;
Shoots and blooms will burst from silence,
Like maidens in petticoats, silk hose,
And lacy pinafores, dancing round the Maypole,
Their hands braiding the
sun's slanting rays.
