This collection of poems offers a clever take on an old Appalachian folkstory, The Long Black Veil—in which an accused murderer chooses to be hanged instead of admitting that he was making love to his best friend’s wife while the murder was being committed—with more than 90 poems recounting the tale from various townspeople’s points of view, including the best friend, the murder victim, the judge, and the murderer.
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
In Petitions for Immortality (2004), Cooperman built a penetrating biography-in-poems on snippets of John Keats' letters and poems. Here, out of the country-music perennial "The Long Black Veil," he fashions a tragedy as unforgiving as one of Euripides'. As in the song, rather than confess to being with his best friend's wife, a man goes to the gallows, and for long after, his lover visits his grave. Cooperman makes the two friends post-Civil War Appalachian mine owners; the adulterous wife a belle from South Carolina; the murdered a mean-spirited banker and the murderer a smallholder ruined by him; the two witnesses habitual drunks; and the judge resentful of the accused's charm. He adds a flawed good witness (the "village idiot"); the hanged man's lovelorn housekeeper, who has been also his casual mistress; and others. Not one of the principals is innocent. Perhaps they don't deserve to suffer, but how could they avoid it? An unforgettably powerful progression of monologues, reminiscent of but better wrought than most of Masters' famed Spoon River Anthology. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Us[es] the perfect metaphor and the finely crafted line to create a narrative which keeps the reader turning the pages." —Carol Hamilton, former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma; author, Vanishing Point
"Place this book squarely on the shelf between Harper Lee and Edgar Lee Masters." —George Wallace, editor, poetrybay.com
"It's a moving, nuanced novella in poetry." —Ibbetsen Street Review
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The tale of a community riven by murder, sex, violence, betrayal, secrets, lies, alcohol, execution, and miscarriage.,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Long Black Veil (Paperback)
Written by Robert Cooperman, The Long Black Veil is an anthology of free-verse poetry by Robert Cooperman in which each poem tells a piece of a greater story. Monologues reminiscent of balads bring together the tale of a community riven by murder, sex, violence, betrayal, secrets, lies, alcohol, execution, and miscarriage. A grim yet utterly fascinating portrayal of the dark side of a close-knit community. "Ludlow Haversham, the Prosecutor": With an election imminent, / I needed a conviction, especially / since the victim was our banker, / citizens coddled that their deposits / were safe as eagles' eggs in high nests.
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