David Bottoms explores otherness, the death of parents, and private spirituality. Images of rural Georgia confront the changing landscape of his memories where he searches for refuge in quiet places of prayer. Rooted in nature, Bottoms’ poetry affirms the “tenuous ways tenderness seeps into the world” and the loneliness inherent in memory. Memory is “smoke off a damp fire” as Bottoms explores absence, a contemplative inner life, and changing landscapes.
ISBN: 9781556595202
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781556595363
Format: Hardcover
Reviews
“Bottoms’s poems are like dark rooms: we enter and exit through the same door, but we’re a little different on the way out…” —The Millions
“[Bottoms] makes astounding leaps of both faith and doubt, and does so with insight, honesty, and flashes of anger―all characteristic elements of his work.” ―Southern Review
“One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern poems: clear narratives… evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise.” ―Library Journal
“Bottoms’ poems do what the best poems have always done: They compel us to reread them. They linger in our minds. They alter our perception of the world.” ―Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“David Bottoms is brilliant in the clarity and richness of his language, profoundly humane in the breadth and compassion of his vision. He is quite simply one of the best poets writing today.” —Jane Hirshfield