Elegy For The Southern Drawl

by Rodney Jones

Overview

Exulting in the speech of his native Alabama, Rodney Jones's new poems combine satire and ode, formal lament and ribald joke. James Dickey praised this poet's early work as "one of our most poignant and inescapable renditions of the agony at the historical razor's edge." Now, in his sixth book, Jones extends his emotional and stylistic range. He writes of football and feminism, of DDT and family, of crows and sex, of ink and raccoons and perpetual-motion machines. In many of these poems the southern drawl lives forever, riding on the tide of regional language, poking fun yet delighting in it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780618082490
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/14/2001
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

RODNEY JONES is the author of eleven books of poems. His many honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Harper Lee Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award, and he has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. He teaches in the low-residency MFA creative writing program at Warren Wilson College and lives in New Orleans and Southern Illinois.

Read an Excerpt

Sometimes in one summer, one would hear, In one family, four or five distinct accents: Low-country mushmouth; mountain twang

The almost r-less river talk of merchant planters Droned out and of a lazy kinship to the sleek Ambidextrous blackspeak of their former slaves

And the hated northun brogue, smuggled Back from Dee-troit to parlay credit on a half Pound of bologna and a box of Velveeta cheese.

Copyright © 1999 by Rodney Jones

Editorial Reviews

"Rodney Jones, in my view, is one of the two or, at most, three best poets of his generation. He is a true poet of his own culture. He is brilliant, wise, deeply sane, incredibly knowledgeable about the craft, tender, moving, honest, and—pure. I love reading him. He gives me hope for poetry." — Gerald Stern, Winner of the National Book Award for Poetry, 1998

"A brand-new, world-class poet." National Book Critics Circle —

From the Publisher