'Night Burning' - In the night meadow, grassfire burns My eyes till only the shadows Are good to look on. It takes Care to make a fire that touches Only what you want touched. It takes a life of burning And knowing what to burn. One night when I was a child I woke to the changing Light of pasture fire. I turned To the window, saw Lines of flame sweep My father's dark fields. I thought What if he loses it. What if it breaks away. What if everything burns? I saw my hands catch fire, I touched the sheets, the quilts, Let go of it, let it rise Into the rafters until The black roof split And the October sky Opened to nothing I could name. And in that moment of joy When I did not know who I was I saw my father walking Over the fields, the blinding Torch in his hand falling, Touching, rising - the earth Beneath him turning Dark and light. "Bluegrass Wasteland: Selected Poems 1978-2003" draws on T R Hummer's seven collections of poetry and serves to locate him as one of America's most distinguished poets. His work is characterised by a mixture of intellectual and emotional observation; his poems leap off the page through the sheer scope of his imagination. A master of the longer poem, he draws on his skills as a saxophonist and one-time band member to give his narrative a rhythm and drive that make for utterly compelling reading.
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Editorial Reviews
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"Of Hummer's most recent collection, Useless Virtues, the eminent American poet and critic Richard Howard writes: "The whole book... is so intelligent... that I am not at all embarrassed, only proud to hail Hummer - along with John Koethe and Alan Grossman - as a principal poet of the American mind."
About the Author
T. R. HUMMER was born in Macon, Mississippi and grew up on a farm before embarking upon a career of teaching literature and creative writing at various academic institutions including the University of Oregon. He has published seven full-length collections of poetry and is also known as a short story writer, essayist and reviewer. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he has twice won the prestigious Pushcart Prize for his poetry. He is currently editor-in-chief of The Georgia Review.
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