Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions

Book excerpt: This year's winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Maurice Manning's Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions. These compelling poems take us on a wild ride through the life of a man-child in the rural South. Presenting a cast of allegorical, yet very real, characters, the poems have authority, daring, and a language of colour and sure movement, says series judge W.S. Merwin. Maurice Manning is a native of Danville, Kentucky. He holds degrees from Earlham College, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Alabama, where he received his MFA in 1999. He has held a writing fellowship to The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He currently teaches English at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. From Seven Chimeras The way Booth makes a love story: same as a regular story, except under one rock is a trapdoor that leads to a room full of belly buttons; each must be pushed, one is a landmine. The way Booth makes hope: thirty-seven acres, Black Damon, Red Dog. Construct a pillar of fire in the Great Field and let it become unquenchable. The way Booth ends the Jack-in-the-Box charade: shoot the weasel in the neck and toss it to the buzzards. The way Booth think