Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch

by David Bottoms

Overview

“[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.” —The 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 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.

From “An Absence”:

Yes, things happen in the cool white spaces,
those moments you turn your head –
the way the trembling branch suggests the owl,
or the print by the pond suggests the fox.
Near the end, though, only one thing matters,
and nothing, not even the fox, moves as quietly.

David Bottoms is the author of eight books of poetry and has received the Walt Whitman Award, fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and served as Poet Laureate of Georgia for twelve years. He currently holds the Amos Distinguished Chair in English at Georgia State University.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619321885
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	05/01/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	72
File size:	537 KB

About the Author

David Bottoms grew up in Canton, Georgia, the only child of a funeral director and a registered nurse in a home that had only two books: a King James Bible and a book by preacher Billy Graham. In 1979, Bottoms’ collection, Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump, won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, where judge Robert Penn Warren described Bottoms as, “a strong poet, and much of his strength emerges from the fact that he is temperamentally a realist.” Bottoms has since published eight books of poetry, two novels, and a book of essays, and served as Poet Laureate of Georgia for 12 years (2000-2012). He has won numerous awards including fellowships from both the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation and won a Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation. He currently holds the Amos Distinguished Chair in English at Georgia State University.

Read an Excerpt

Bring the Beautiful Horses


Some days nothing helps.

Some days not even a basket of apples will bring the black horses
out of the past,

and Christ Pantocrator
seems little more than the face of an absurd hippie.

(My old man bent toward the gaping mouth. He sniffed, it was confirmed.
Nothing would help.)

Some days the sweetest words will not bring a blessing from the sky,
or sweeten the breakfast table with a smile,

or bring the beautiful horses out of the magical past.

(Nobody knew death like my father –
the Solomons, Wake Island, Guadalcanal. Thirty years

prepping bodies in a funeral home.) Some days on the prayer porch
the petitions never clear the trees,

and there is nothing to do but rock
and watch the wind rattle the maples and pin oaks.

(When he turned toward my aunt and shook his head,
everyone knew it was accomplished.)

Some days those beautiful horses will not leave the shadows
of their hill.

Some days nothing helps.



An Absence

Near the end, only one thing matters.

Yes, it has something to do with the moon and the way
the moon balances so nervously

on the ridge of the barn. This is the landscape of my childhood –
my grandfather’s country store, his barn, his pasture.

His chicken houses are already falling, but near the end
only the one thing matters.

It has to do with the prudence of his woods,
the way the trembling needles prove the wind.

Let’s sit here by the fence
and watch for the fox that comes each night to the pasture.

Imagine how the moon cools the water in the cow pond.
Yes, things happen in the cool white spaces,

those moments you turn your head –
the way the trembling branch suggests the owl,

or the print by the pond suggests the fox.
Near the end, though, only one thing matters,

and nothing, not even the fox, moves as quietly.



Hubert Blankenship

Needing credit, he edges through the heavy door, head down,
and quietly closes the screen behind him.

This is Blankenship, father of five, owner of a plow horse and a cow.

Out of habit he leans against the counter by the stove.
He pats the pockets of his overalls

for the grocery list penciled on a torn paper bag,
then rolls into a strip of newsprint

the last of his Prince Albert.
He hardly takes his eyes off his boot, sliced on one side

to accommodate his bunion, and hands
the list to my grandfather. Bull of the Woods, three tins

of sardines, Spam, peanut butter, two loaves of bread (Colonial),
then back to the musty feed room

where he ignores the hand truck leaning against the wall

and hefts onto his shoulder a hundred pound bag of horse feed.
He rises to full height, snorting

but hardly burdened,
and parades, head high, to the bed of his pickup.

A Nervous Boy


1

I was a nervous boy, small and nervous.
I liked to hide.

I sought out places of refuge –
close spaces where thick air was a balm for remorse.

And there were many secret places
between the store and the dog lots, the barn and ball field.

The chicken house, for instance, at the top of the path
to my grandfather’s dog lots,
empty for years
but still rich with the smell of broilers and feed –

a quiet dark enjoyed by rats
and rat snakes, spiders, roaches, beetles, earwigs,

and once, even a stray dog birthing her litter in the dank sawdust.

One day I hid there all afternoon.


2

I hadn’t wanted to shoot the rabbit.
It sat on a ridge of the pasture, stiff ears reaching for the sky,

and even from that distance I could see it trembling.
Wind whipped the grass and blew in
the stench of dog turds. My stomach turned.

My grandfather laid the barrel of his rifle on a fence rail
and held the stock to my shoulder.
I was a good shot. I sighted the head, I steadied,

but I didn’t want to shoot that rabbit trembling
in perpetual surrender. I inched high, squeezed, and dirt flew up




a foot beyond it.

My grandfather sighed as though my failure
suggested the sort of man I’d be.
But I didn’t want to shoot that rabbit.

He shrugged. He shook his head.
He pumped the rifle again
and pressed the stock tight against my shoulder.


3

From the chicken house
I could hear the horse neighing in his stall,
the crows in the pines on the hill above the dog lots.

After a while, shouts rose from the ball field at the foot of the hill.
But I only wanted to hide.

I only wanted the dark, the solitude.

I don’t recall the shot or the rabbit jumping
sideways and falling,
only that old man lifting it by the ears

and flinging it into the dog lot.
I must’ve shot the rabbit.




All Beggars Would Ride

for Jane Hirshfield

Last night the beautiful horses of my boyhood galloped again

into my dream. I especially love the sleek black mare
with the white star between her eyes,

and remember her grace as she’d trot
across the pasture when I stretched my arm over the fence –

corn husks, an apple core, such small things, such large joy.
I’ve often wished I had a heart like that.

Ah, says my mother-in-law, if wishes were horses . . .



Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch

Maybe I’ll rise from the dead.

Or live as a shadow. Or maybe I’ll never leave you. At Emeritus
an old man plowing the hallway

with a three-wheeled walker
stopped me and grinned, My goal is to live forever – so far, so good.

Maybe we never get enough birdsong,
or watery soup
and over-steamed veggies. Still, from the prayer porch
eternity sometimes looks like a raw deal.

Eternal leaf blower and weed whacker?

(A few days before he died my old man asked about the yard.)
Mostly blue jays at the feeder this morning, rude

and rowdy, and a few cardinals dripping off the trees
like the bloody tears of Christ.

Maybe we only rise again to the good things – honeysuckle,
robins, mockingbirds, doves,
fireflies toward evening, and along the back fence

the steady harping of tree frogs .
On the prayer porch, among the icons, such fancy notions.

Table of Contents

1

An Absence 5

Studying the Small Hill 6

Slow Nights in the Bass Boat 7

Question on Allatoona 8

Photo: Captured Gator, Canton, Georgia, 1960 9

Blessings, Yellow Mountain 10

2

Spooked 13

The Grocer's Tackle Box 14

My Old Man's Homemade Dagger 15

A Panic of Bats 16

Summer 1968 17

Baptists 18

Bring the Beautiful Horses 19

Turkey Shoot, 1961 20

Hubert Blankenship 21

Foul Ball 22

Black Horses 23

A Nervous Boy 24

A Small Remembrance 26

Cathedrals 31

3

Hospital 37

Dress Blues 38

Hovering 39

Eye to Eye 40

Spring 2012 41

Attic Rats 42

Staying in Touch 43

Kelly Sleeping 44

Remembering Flowers 45

An Old Enemy 46

Little King Snake on the Prayer Porch 47

All Beggars Would Ride 48

4

Sundown Syndrome 51

My Mother's Abscess 52

Rehab 53

Baptist Women 54

Arrival at Riverstone 55

Young Nurse, VA Hospital, 1945 56

The Moon My Mother Shot For 57

5

Close Call 61

Maybe a Little Music 62

No Voice in the Trees 63

Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch 64

Other Evidence 65

A Scrawny Fox 66

About the Author 69

Editorial Reviews

“[He] makes astounding leaps of both faith and doubt, and does so with insight, honesty, and flashes of anger – all characteristic elements of his work.” -The Southern Review

“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

"One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern poems: clear narratives... evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise." —Library Journal

“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

From the Publisher

03/01/2018
In his tenth collection, Levinson Prize winner Bottoms (We Almost Disappear) gives us poems about the stages of life: childhood, adulthood, the birth of a child, caring for aging parents, and death. The poems also delve into his earliest memories, home (especially the prayer porch), and deep connection to nature and reverence for all creatures, even those that provoke fear: "I studied the moccasin for a moment longer—/ the fat and terrible muscle of him, his black scales rippling." In the best poems, we encounter the mystery of life: "A doctor I knew once/ told me that every time he watched a patient die/ he thought he could see something tangible// leaving the body." The author's attention to detail bedrocks these poems, as in when Bottoms describes the view from a baseball field of a river below the rendering plant, where "chicken parts still flooded up in the pool beyond the rock—/ clots of dirty feathers, feet." In one of his porch poems, he shows what often happens when people seek solace outdoor: "Somewhere// a yard fanatic is butchering another tree." VERDICT Throughout, Bottoms brings an almost prayerful attention to the everyday. No fireworks here, just accessible language that records ordinary life and infuses it with mystery and longing.—Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN

Library Journal